Active Schools
Welcome to our dedicated page where we outline our vision of an Active School.
Trials for Cork City Sports
The girls had a great day yesterday taking part in the Cork City Sports trial. Well done to those who will be representing the school in June.
The very best of luck on June 1st when the girls will represent St Joseph’s NS in the Cork City Sports.
Orienteering in Schull.
On 26th September 5th and 6th class went orienteering in Schull. Each group was provided with a map and an electronic tag called a dibber. They visited twenty posts to complete the course. Each group was timed and it took the girls approximately half an hour to finish it. A fun and active day out!
St Joseph’s is currently working towards achieving an Active School Flag. Although we have been involved in many physical activities over the years, we began our journey towards becoming an Active School in September of 2016. We started increasing physical activity in the school and having an Active School Week. We hope to complete our application this year with an accreditation visit by the end of the school year.
A gymnastics session in the Sports Centre
We have many children involved in extracurricular activities such as football, rugby, basketball, rowing, swimming and athletics. We are lucky to have such a vast variety of sporting clubs in our community. We are also in a very fortunate position to have the Skibbereen Sports Centre in such close proximity to our school and we use this on a weekly basis for PE lessons.
Teachers continually increase awareness among the children through PE and SPHE lessons about the importance of physical activity in keeping fit and healthy. We have a Healthy Eating Policy in the school and have recently sent home our newsletter from the Parents Association giving parents and children ideas about healthy lunches. Last year we took part in the Super Troopers programme where students were assigned physical homework each night. Alongside the PE curriculum, golf will be continuing again in October of this year
Pupils in first class participating in PE in the yard
We have set up a committee to co-ordinate and organise Active School events. Mrs O Regan ran a competition for the girls to come up with a slogan for St Josephs being an active school. There were some fantastic entries and it was very difficult to choose. Eight girls were chosen from this to be on the committee. The committee is made up of Mrs O Regan, Ms Calnan, Ava Minehane, Amie O Driscoll, Lily Murray, Sophia Paradisi, Anna McCarthy, Caitlin Lamasnay, Niamh O Sullivan and Ali Tobin.
Our Golden Boot challenge is continuing this year with each class competing to see who has the highest percentage of children walking to school each day. Our parents made a huge effort with this last year walking their children to school. The prestigious award is then kept in the winning classroom for a week.
The Golden Boot
Active School Week was a huge success last year and we look forward to running another one this year. Our Parents Association kindly organised various activities in the school that week including a visit from Johnathon Davis who did athletics with the children, Tommy O Donoghue who did kickboxing and Laura O Mahony and Lana Dillane who taught basketball to the girls in the sports centre. Other activities such as the 10@10,céilí and mini flashmobs were a huge hit with the students and staff alike. Have a look at our website to see the video of our flashmob.
Each year our girls compete in Cork City Sports, Mrs Groarke organises the trials each year. This year we used the O Donovan Rossa Astroturf for the run-offs. As always our girls did us proud in Cork and we look forward to this again in the coming year.
