All pupils in St George's NS have twice daily playground breaks.
Our playgrounds are zoned so that class levels have their own areas.
We like to facilitate the use of PE equipment during break times.
Resources include: footballs, basketballs and skipping ropes.
It is policy in St George's NS that on days when pupils are unable to play outdoors that each class completes an extended classroom-based physical activity break.
GoNoodle is a favourite on days we cannot go outside :)
Every class completed the Active Break Every Day challenge, as a whole school initiative, from November 13th to December 8th, 2023.
Every class committed to taking an Active Break every day over the four weeks. The benefits of this are improved concentration in class, improved fitness and improved long term health benefits.
We complete this challenge every year and it is always popular with our pupils!
Each class had a checklist on their door to keep track of the active breaks they were completing everyday. We liked keeping an eye on what all the classes were getting up to!
Classes used a variety of activity breaks including running breaks, dance breaks, exercise breaks and the Olympic Movement Breaks, which were led by Olympians and High-Performance athletes demonstrating fun exercises and activities that students of all abilities can do.
The Olympic Movement Breaks were very popular as we look forward to the Olympics in Paris 2024.
Well done St George's!
Every class agreed upon 3, or more, actions to decrease sedentary time.
Each class chose actions that suited them and displayed their actions on a poster in their classroom.
Some of the most popular actions included:
- Running laps
- Dance breaks
- Olympic Movement Breaks
- Stretching in class
- Movement breaks between lessons
- GoNoodle
- Exercise when an announcement is made
We are delighted with our new Active School Walkway in St George's.
Our caretaker, Paul, helped us to secure the signs around the school grounds.
We had a fantastic map of the school made when Eileen, from the Irish Orienteering Association, came to our school to work with our 5th Class pupils.
This map helped us greatly when plotting out the walkway.
We are lucky to have plenty of outdoor space in St George's and plenty of varied and interesting areas.
Our wonderful Active Agents measured the length of our walkway - 650m in total.
We intend to use our walkway to 'do our talking as we're walking' for our Active Committee meetings in the future!
Our Active Agents worked together to come up with some ideas that teachers could use as Active Rewards in the classroom.
Our Active Agent suggestions include:
Extra yard time on a Friday for best lines
GoNoodle/Just Dance reward breaks
Active School Homework Passes - we used to give homework passes as rewards but now we give active homework passes. The pupil gets the night off written homework and gets to do active work instead!
Pupils at St George’s enjoyed an active day to mark the last day before mid-term break in October.
We Halloween-ified our Active School Walkway!
Work your way around the walkway and complete the exercise that corresponds to the spooky image!
Happy Halloween everyone!
