Physical Activity
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‘ACTIVE SCHOOL FLAG 2024/2025’
Physical Activity Initiatives
In addition to PE lessons, pupils take part in many fun activities to stay active. Our school day is regularly revitalized within the classroom with ‘brain break’ activities thanks to the Go Noodle website, the Bizzy Breaks programme and teacher led physical movement breaks. These regular brain breaks boost energy levels fueling the children’s brains for further learning. These breaks are particularly important on rainy days when we can’t get outside and movement breaks are extended on these days.
We run many initiatives to promote activity throughout the school year including an Easter Scavenger hunt and céilís during Seachtain na Gaeilge.
In recent school years, we also invested in freshening up our the playground markings. This has benefited our P.E. lessons and has also increased physical activity during break and lunch time. The pupils use the playground markings for their own made up versions of the game ‘Tag’. These games are called ‘Lines’ and ‘Prisoners’. They also enjoy throwing beanbags at the target board, skipping and shooting hoops using the basketball markings.
Our playground also has a large grass area with goal posts. This area is well maintained by our Caretaker, Ger and hosts daily soccer matches amongst the senior pupils. In recent weeks, we also invested in new soccer balls. Leather footballs to be used exclusively on the grass area and all-weather balls which can be used on the tar mac on wet and rainy days.
Teachers also incorporate physical activity throughout the curriculum. For example: walking and measuring out the length of a kilometre on the basketball court with a trundle well in Maths, nature walks and Deir O Gradaigh as Gaeilge.
‘Active Break Every Day’ Challenge
For four weeks from March 3rd to March 28th 2025, the pupils in the Junior and Senior Class took two movement breaks daily.
The senior class took their movement breaks at 10.00 a.m. and 11.50 p.m. We took inspiration from the Bizzy Break resources: https://irishheart.ie/schools/primary-schools/bizzy-breaks/interactive-resources/. We also completed activities such as Step sequence, Mystery Mover and Dance Dice. We completed yoga activities from www.gonoodle.com. We also used Joe wicks’ youtube videos and our basketball court for running and walking.
The Junior room took 2 movement breaks each day at varying times chosen by the teacher. We really enjoyed using our 6 bricks and ribbons to create streamers and used these in creative ways to dance to our favourite songs. We also used Joe Wicks and GoNoodle videos and invented stomping dances to accompany our class rote-learning chants. We discovered Virtual PE fitness runs on youtube and had great fun navigating obstacle courses while pretending to be our favourite characters. (Ms. Dunne)
Active Walkways
With the arrival of brighter and drier days in March, we were reintroduced to the Active Walkway concept.
The total distance of our Active Walkway is 762 metres.
As part of their introduction to the Active Walkway, the Junior Classroom (Junior Infants- 2nd Class) walked the walkway with their teacher, Ms. Dunne. They enjoyed finding all the signs and exploring the different colours, numbers, shapes etc. on them.
After the initial introduction, Ms. Mann used the ‘Active Walkway Ideas Booklet’ on the Resources section of the Active School Flag website for cross curricular worksheets during the months of March and April. Ms. Mann also adapted her Walkway map each time the walkway was used by her class. This meant the pupils had to focus on the location of the sign at a given number rather than the number written on the sign. This took a bit of getting used but ensured the Walkway was always a challenge in terms of map reading. The total distance of our Active Walkway is 762 metres.
We also used our Active Walkway during Active School week.
Playground Leaders
Being a small rural teacher school with only 24 pupils in total, our pupils have always been very good at organizing whole school activities during break and lunch time. This happens informally with little teacher input. Usually, members of the Senior Class will suggest a game, bring equipment outside (if required) and invite the rest of the school pupils to play. Some of the most popular games played in our school are: Grass Tag, Lines, Prisoners, Tag with rugby tags, Rounders and Red light Green Light.
On Thursday, March 6th, we decided to formalize it again in the run up to the renewal of our Active Flag. The pupils in the senior class became familiar with the concept of playground leaders. The pupils were given a choice to become became leaders. A rota was drawn up and a list of playground games was created as a whole school activity.
Playground Games
- ‘Among us’ Catching game
- Lines
- Tip the can
- Tag with rugby tags
- Throwing at the target (Beanbags)
- Prisoners
- Stuck in the mud
- Duck duck goose
- What time is it Mr. Wolf?
- Red Light, Green light
- Penalty shootout
- Donkey
- Skipping
From Thursday, March 6th, Playground leaders occurred once a week at lunch on Thursdays. The playground leaders worked in pairs or in groups of 3. Each week, they picked two games from the list of playground games that was compiled by the whole school. A whole school vote took place at break time which allowed the leaders to have P.E. equipment ready for lunch. Teachers on yard gave some assistance initially as the playground leaders came to grips with managing and organizing their peers into games. Playground leaders wore the high vis provided by the Active School Flag initiative. All pupils in Ballyroe Central N.S. had a choice each week whether or not they wanted to take part.
This occurred until April 11th 2025 (Easter Break). After the Easter Break, we felt that Playground Leaders was making those fun whole playground games that usually happened organically too formal and less enjoyable. We decided to revert back to our original format. In our two teacher school where all the pupils tend to get involved in playground games together regularly, ‘whole school playground games with leaders’ still occur but with a much greater level of flexibility which on days which suit our pupils.
In Senior Classroom, we also linked our procedural writing with the Active Flag Initiative.
‘Skip around Europe’ Challenge
From Monday March 31st until Friday May 9th 2025, all our pupils took part in the Skip Around Europe Challenge. Before the challenge, we invested in new skipping ropes for all our pupils. This was further supplemented by a delivery of skipping ropes from the Active School Flag initiative. The challenge occurred daily during the 4 week period usually during our school break at 10.30 a.m. Fortunately, we were also blessed with some lovely sunny weather. The junior class worked in pairs to record their skips. All pupils used their whiteboards to kept track of daily skip count. Class totals were recorded daily and added together.
- During the challenge, we visited a total of 15 European cities.
Riga, Latvia
Moscow, Russia
Valetta, Malta
Athens, Greece
Warsaw, Poland
Vilnius, Lithuania
Budapest, Hungary
Kiev, Ukraine
Paris, France
London, England
Brussels, Belgium
Berlin, Germany
Copenhagen, Denmark
Ankara, Turkey
Rome, Italy
On the final day of the challenge, our pupils were rewarded with ice-cream to acknowledge their hard work and effort.
We also linked an ICT/ visual arts lesson with the ‘Skip around Europe’ challenge. The pupils used the Paint App on the school laptops to create their own versions of famous European landmarks.
Active Flag Art European Landmarks 2025