Active Schools

 

Our Active Committee:

Liam, Annie, Kerrie and Conan

May 2023 

Its Active fortnight in Drumfad National School! Its action packed and full of fun-filled activities.

 

Week 2 Activities 

Cycling trip for Seniors to Warden Beach with Beach Clean up.

GAA training with Manus

Golf in Portsalon Golf Club

Free Choice PE

Active Movement Breaks (each day)

 

Week 1 Activities 

Basketball with Bernie

GAA with Manus

Free Choice PE

Active Movement breaks (each day)

Obstacle course with Seniors

Bike Safety Checks with Ciaran (Friday)

 

March 2023 

Aengus Returns for Scooter Week (Integration with Scoot to School  Week Green Schools)

On Monday 27th March Aengus returned to Drumfad for a scooter day.

First it was onto helmet safety. Each of the children took out their helmets. Aengus talked to us about his experiences of helmet safety and how important it is to always wear our helmets when on our bikes as well as our scooters. Each of the children were fitted for their helmet and straps tightened correctly.

Afterwards it was time to get scooting outside. We were taught the correct way to put your feet on the scooter. We practised taking off and our emergency stops. We began following cones to make right hand turns and then left hand turns before picking up the pace, getting faster and faster.

Each of the children had a fantastic day and we thank Aengus for coming to show us his scooter skills.

Swimming Finishes

On Monday 20th March we finished our swimming lessons at Magherabeg Leisure Centre.

We throughly enjoyed the experience of getting into the pool and learning to swim.

We practised our floating, stroke development as well as water safety at the pool.

Well done to all the pupils.

Súgradh le Chéile

Along with Donegal Sports Partnership we had a fantastic afternoon playing with our Mums and Dads on Monday 13th March.

We travelled to our local Kerrykeel Church Hall so that we could have some extra space as the weather was not very good.

We played on our own, in groups and with everyone.

Afterwards we got to have some fruit, diluted juice, as well as some tea.

Thank you Donegal Sports Partnership for an amazing afternoon.

 

Active Fortnight 

A dates for the diary – May 8th – 19th will be our Active Fortnight with Golf, gymnastic, Gaelic football just a number of the activities planned.

 

Gymnastics Lessons 

On Thursday 9th March we will begin our gymnastics lessons from Citadel. They will be coming to our school each Thursday for a number of weeks.

 

Walkaway Around our school

This month our fantastic caretaker put up our walkaway boards.

All of the children have been busy exploring the boards to find all the numbers. We look forward to using them soon as a whole school integrating into lots of different subjects.

 

Run Around Ireland Challenge

This month we are taking part in the run around Ireland challenge.

Each morning we are running laps around our school to see some spectacular sights of Ireland.

On our first morning we completed over 150 laps with all students taking part. Amazing!

We cannot wait to see all the places we will explore.

 

Garda Station Visit

On March 2nd we travelled to Milford Garda Station.

Here we met local Gardaí who allowed us to visit inside the station.

We examined the interview rooms, sat down in the cells, hopped in the Garda van and modelled all the Garda uniform and equipment.

We were delighted to be able to see how active the Gardaí are in our local area.

We talked and discussed together Road Safety on our farms as well as walking and travelling to school.

February 2023

Big Travel Challenge 

Integrating with our Green School Travel Flag we completed the Big Travel Challenge for 10 school days in February.

For 10 days we travelled to school by walking, cycling, scooting, taking the bus and park ‘n’ stride as much as we could.

In the beginning only 1 / 2 students in our school occasionally came to school without their car. We wanted to have our children as active as possible.

Over the course of the two weeks we had on average 5 students a day cycling.

We are so proud of everyone and thank all the parents for their support.

January 2023

We have started swimming!

We are all very excited here in Drumfad as we begin our swimming lessons again for the whole school.

Each Friday we are travelling to Downings to complete our lessons.

We have been learning new skills as well as practising our skills from last year.

 

Snow Days

We really enjoyed having the snowy weather come to our area.

We spent time outside walking, travelling and sliding across the ice and snow.

It was amazing to take active breaks outside and enjoy it while it was here. We took inspiration from this and created our own Active Snow day stories as a whole school, linking the senior and junior rooms together.

 

December 2022 

Gymnastics – Citadel Letterkenny

On December 8th we travelled together to Citadel gymnastics in Letterkenny.

It was amazing!

We had so much fun completing skills which we have never done before.

We practised a lot of our fundamental movement skills as well as others.

Both classrooms joined together and encouraged each other to try new things.

November 2022

This Month we have our new active committee meeting together to discuss changes and activities which they would like to see come to Drumfad.

During the week 21st November the Junior Room held a poster competition for our school active slogan and active activities our school does really well.

We had many amazing entries.

The winner of the week was  ” We are fit and we have fun!”

We have also been practising our orienteering skills. We went outside with our partners and practised looking for each of the points we had on pictures and writing down the number we found. It was really fun! Some were really hard to find.

During November we have also been working on our travel flag and we completed our walkability study. This integrated with our active flag as we looked into our local area on ways we can get more exercise coming to school.

Aengus Kennedy aided us as we walked and wrote down all the items which we need to change.

It was great to get walking together as a whole school and practise our fundamental movement skill.

October 2022

This month we are very delighted to have our girls cross country team(Clara, Alice, Eimear and Cassie) head to Buncrana to compete for our school. Our girls team qualified after their scores were counted together following their cross country running in Milford during September. We wish the girls the very best of luck.

 

Here they are with their medals which they were presented with during our Monthly assembly.

This month we have been focusing on the fundamental movement skill of Running.

The Junior Room has been focused on the standing start for running and running technique.

The Senior Room has been training for the cross country focusing on endurance and running for a specific distance. They have been looking at breathing techniques and the skill.

 

September 2022

Welcome back to our Active School Page. 

We are all back at school and have settled in very well.

We have been very busy fitting in as much active activities into our school lives as well as at home.

In the Junior Room we have had active homework each week focusing on a new skill which we are completing in school.

Our fundamental movement skill for this month has been throwing (Junior Room) and running (Senior Room).

We are investigating how we move using all parts of our body and how we throw our tennis balls for distance and for height.

Friday 29th of September is European Sports Day. We are very excited to try many new activities with our friends and teachers.

Congratulations to all the pupils in the Senior room following their performance at the cross country races in September. Each of the pupils did very well and we are very proud of them.

During our monthly assembly, there were 4 active star awards given out. Well done to all!

 

November 2021

Welcome back to the Active School page! We will be enjoying lots of lovely activities as part of our work towards the Active School Flag this year. We can’t wait to increase our fitness levels together and in a fun way at school! We will keep you posted on different events throughout the year ….. 

On 11th November the Junior Room and the Senior Room visited the Citadel Gymnastics centre in Letterkenny. We had so much fun on the balance boards, doing front flips, bouncing, balancing etc.  We worked so hard and needed lots of water and snacks to keep us going! We had so much fun 😊

 

5 a Side Football League 2019

Well done to our girls who got through to the area final of the Spar 5 a Side football league.  They came 2nd in the area final in Ballyare. We are super proud of you girls, huge congratulations!

Check out our photo gallery to see more photographs of our Active Week.

 

Here in Drumfad, we are very proud of our Active School status, and work very hard to keep it!  Since we were awarded our Active School Flag, we have made some additions to our playground;  our lovely sandpit is enjoyed by all, (the infants in particular!).  We also have a fantastic playhouse, and let’s not forget our wonderful vegetable garden!  Our playground really is a fun place to be.

During the year, we have lots of sporting events and classes to keep us active;  dance classes, Jujitsu, gymnastics, GAA, basketball are just some of the activities we take part in.

We also join up with other local schools regularly for fun sports days and activities.