Active School Motto 

There are four key areas to the ‘Active Schools’ Programme – our physical education lessons, physical activity at other times of the day, getting everyone involved and having an Active Schools Week.

Physical Education

The P.E. Curriculum
There are 6 strands in the P.E. curriculum:  Athletics Dance Games Gymnastics Outdoor and Adventure Aquatics
5 out of the 6 strands are covered each year, with Aquatics (water safety) being taught in the classroom. If you wish to take a look at the curriculum, it can be found on the NCCA website.
Physical Education is allocated 1 hour per week of overall teaching time.

PE Timetable.

  • Each class receives 60 mins of PE each week. 
  • All teachers have been given copies of the PSSI (Primary School Sports Initiative) lesson plans for their class level along with a bank of warm-up and cool-down activities.
  • Every child’s progress in PE is discussed with parents at parent/teacher meeting.
  • Feedback about progress in Physical Education is included in annual school reports.​

PE Equipment and Storage

Picture
  • Our school ensures that children with special needs can play a full role in all PE opportunities – all equipment is labelled clearly.
  • The School work with the local Sports Inclusion Disability Officer to find out how we can become more inclusive as a school in terms of the PE and physical activity opportunities that we offer. 
  • Our school undertakes a PE equipment audit once a year, disposing of old and broken equipment.
  • Our school has adequate, age appropriate equipment to teach all of the PE strands.
  • Our PE equipment and resources are clearly labelled, well organised and easily accessible.

PE resource library

The staff have created a PE Resource area in the staff room and online in Google Drive where they can access Resource Books for PE. 
This includes:
  • PE Curriculum Document.
  • Be Active ASAP resource folder.
  • PPSI (Primary School Sports Initiative) lesson plans.
  • NCCA 'PE Guidelines for Children with Mild to Moderate Learning Difficulties'
  • Bizzy Breaks ideas. 
  • Games and Activities folder. 

Physical Activity

  • Our school provides twice daily playground breaks.
  • Our school promotes the full range of fundamental movement skills during break times and pupils are permitted to run.
  • Our school yard is zoned to allow children to engage in a variety of different activities.
  • Our school facilitates the use of sports equipment during break times.
  • The children participate in 'Musical Mondays' where music is played during yard times. 
  • Do your talking as you are walking is also encouraged during break times.
  • Our school trains senior pupils as Playground leaders.
  • The children participate in Active lines after every break for certain times of the year. 
  • The School are initiating 'Football Free Fridays' to allow for a range of other sports to be played. 
  • All pupils engage in an extended classroom based physical activity break on wet days.
  • Short physical activity breaks (go noodle etc.) are used on a regular basis.
  • Our school promotes physical activity rewards.
  • The children have a 'Rainy Day Breaks' list of activities they can do in the classroom if it is raining. ​

​Physical Activity

Greaghrahan NS incorporates physical activity into school calendar events. For example:
  • Autumn - Autumn Trails
  • Halloween – School Disco
  • Christmas – Santa Dash
  • Easter – Easter egg hunt
  • Spring – Spring Trails
  • National Spring Clean
  • Maths week – maths trails
  • ASW – Walk on Wednesday
  • 10@10 
  • Active Lines
  • Operation Transformation 
  • Daily Mile 
  • Summer Scavenger hunt
  • School Trips - Involve Physical Activity - 'The Crystal Maze, Lough Crew Adventure Centre, Bay Sports'                                                            Check out our photographs below to see how we have been Physically Active. 

Partnerships

Our Active School Committee

Greaghrahan NS has registered for the Active Flag and has formed an Active Flag Committee. The committee comprises of the ASF coordinator, pupils from Junior Infants to 6th classes and other members of the teaching staff. The committee will work together with teachers, parents and local agencies to enable the whole school community to become more physically active.

The pupils on the active schools committee have been given leadership roles:
  • Active line leaders at the end of break
  • Playground leaders
  • Look after the sports baskets used at break times
  • Keep the P.E. store neat and tidy
  • Make sure all the equipment in the P.E. store are placed in the correct baskets/bags
  • Carry out surveys
  • Report any messages back to their class teachers and classmates
  • Organise and help set up equipment for Sports day/ Be Active ASAP/ Santa Dash etc
  • Organise equipment and look after their teams during 10@10
  • Lead warm ups/ cool downs as part of the 'Be Active ASAP' programme. 
"What club are you in?" Survey
The senior members of the ASF committee carried out a survey titled "What club are you in?" Based on the results, we discovered that the students in Greaghrahan N.S. attend a total of 13 different clubs.

Active School Board

Santa Dash 2020

On Monday, the boys and girls took part in a Santa Dash on the school grounds. The children wore their Christmas jumpers, hairbands and Santa hats. Everyone was in good spirits despite the rain. Well done boys and girls! ☺️

Active School Walkway

We launched our Active School Walkway. Look out for the green and blue signs around the school building and
​ grounds. The children were delighted to used the new walkway route as part of their Daily Mile challenge. The walkway signs will also be used for orienteering activities.

Well Done Wall

Pupils sporting achievements are celebrated and their photograph displayed on the 'Well done Wall' 

Congratulations to Drumlane U13's who beat Shercock to become Division 3 County Champions on Tuesday evening. Well done to the Greaghrahan boys who were part of the winning team! 

Local Partnerships

We have great partnerships with many local sporting clubs, particularly GAA clubs, including Drumlane and Milltown Gaa. These clubs provide great support to our school in many ways and especially in terms of allowing us to use their facilities. 

Greghrahan NS works with Cavan GAA and Games Promotion Officer Neven O'Donnell who provides Gaelic training for the pupils. The pupils participate in the Cumnn na mBunscol competition and Drumlane Partnership sponsor the buses for the travel to and from the matches. 

The school have close links Cavan Sports Partnership. 

​The Ulster GAA Office and the Regional Development Officer Emmet Conlon provided hurling coaching for the Junior and Senior Room. 

Spar FAI Primary School 5s Programme is an annual 5 a side football competition that is run for 4th, 5th and 6th class pupils. 

Canoeing
As part of our CASE Peace IV programme with Newtowngore N.S. the children in the senior room have been attending the Share Centre in Lisnaskea.
They got the opportunity to go canoe from the Share Centre to Tranish Island.
The children (and the teachers) really enjoyed the activity!
​A big thank you to the leaders at the Share Centre!

Drumlane Champions visit Greaghrahan


​There was great excitement in Greaghrahan N.S. today when the victorious men's and ladies teams paid a visit to the school.  Captain Kian Monahan, addressed the pupils and introduced the newly crowned Junior Championship team. To celebrate both teams momentous win, Kian gave the children a night off homework!! A very popular decision all round! Well done to both teams and thanks for visiting our school.

Be Active Training
​Greaghrahan N.S hosted a Be Active ASAP training evening on Tuesday 13th November which was open to teachers from other schools in the locality.The Be Active programme takes place after school, one day per week and for a fixed length of time. The after school activity programme will be administered to the children by the teachers, with the help of volunteering parents. We are hoping to get our Be Active ASAP up and running in the middle of the second school term.

​Thank you to Paul who delivered the training and put us through our paces!!

Coming Up!!​
The Active School Committee are busy organising a Christmas theme fun day/Santa dash...
​We'll keep you posted :-) 

Greaghrahan's Christmas Fun Day​

Our Santa Dash/Christmas Fun Day was a great success! We had so much fun taking part in Christmas themed games and activities. What better way to end the term?? The Active Schools Committee worked very hard to organise and prepare for our fun event. Check out our schedule below!
​
The children were so busy running around and getting involved they barely noticed the chilly weather! Check out some of our pictures :-) 

Musical Mondays 
Musical Mondays began with a bang!  The school invested in a large Bluetooth speaker which allows music to be played outside for the children during Monday break time. The children love dancing to the music and it certainly helps to increase physical activity.

                                        Active Line Challenge
​Since returning from our Christmas break we began our Active Break Every Day. Every day at the end of our lunch break we take part in the active line challenge, co-ordinated by two members of the ASF committee. Rather than standing and waiting to go back into class we are taking the opportunity to get even more exercise in!! We're starting with 10 seconds of each exercise but we hope to increase that time soon :-)  Check out our videos! 
​
We have been increasing our reps! We are now completing each exercise 20 times!

Active Break Every Day Challenge
Operation Transformation 10@10

This week we started our 10 @10 Operation Transformation challenge. Every Monday to Friday for the next three weeks we will follow Gráinne Bleasdale and Micheál Ó Ciaraidh on RTÉjr who are getting active while having fun for 10 minutes every morning.They will be showing us how a little exercise every day can make a big difference! We will be completing the 10  minute exercise routines in our classrooms so we can exercise even when it is raining outside :-)  This will be followed by a week of Go Noodle 10 minute daily challenge to complete our 4 week Active Break Every Day Challenge. 


​

Our New Playground

Our multi-use soft play area is now complete and as you can see from the pictures, break times are now even more fun! The project was funded by the CLÁR scheme and we owe a huge thank you to our Parent Association for securing the funding for the school. A special word of thanks to parent Bernard Gallagher who worked tirelessly to see the project to completion. ​

Our Be Active ASAP is up and running!! :-) 

What a fantastic start to our Be Active ASAP. We had so much fun completing four different activity stations. A big thank you to our parent volunteers and of course our wonderful children who made it all so worthwhile. Roll on next Monday :-) Check out the  pictures from our first day!!

Some Snippets from our Be Active ASAP...We had great fun over the 5 weeks. Thank-you to all who helped out!

The Daily Mile​
We started our "Daily Mile" challenge, which will run for 4 weeks. It was hard to run for 15 minutes at first but we are getting so much fitter and it gets easier every day. Sometimes we run with our friends and sometimes we buddy up with the younger classes and motivate each other. 

Easter Egg Hunt

The Easter Break got off to an exciting start with our egg hunt!

Active School Week ​
27th May - 31st May 2019

Active Schools Week (2019) took place from the 27th to the 31st of May. During this week the children and teachers had great fun taking part in many activities to get them up and active. The children even got active homework!

Create your own user feedback survey

Drop Everything and Dance

Volleyball

Coach Francis taught us the basic skills of digging, spiking and serving in our volleyball taster session.

Summer Scavenger Hunt

The parents joined us for our Walk on Wednesday as we looked out for the signs of Summer. 

Watch James do the Limbo!

Zumba

Our Zumba classes began during Active Week. We have been having fun learning the routines and getting fitter at the same time. 

Welly Throwing 

One of the most popular lunchtime activities during Active Week was the Welly Throwing competition.

Sports Quiz

We wish we had paid more attention during Wimbledon, the Ryder Cup and Tour de France as we got a chance to test our sporting knowledge on Thursday of Active Week. 

Yoga

Thanks very much to Jayne for giving us a taster session in Yoga. 

Sports Day 

Active School Tour 
​The Crystal Maze, Lough Crew Adventure Centre, Bay Sports

Halloween Disco
Greaghrahan NS played host to all kinds of ghouls, goblins, ghosts, vampires and witches on Wednesday evening as the children attended our Hallowe'en Party.
There were edible treats and party games and even a scary story for those who were brave enough! The children enjoyed lots of dancing and had so much fun. 

 Cumann na mBunscol ​​

Well done to the boys from Greaghrahan NS on reaching the final of Division 6 Cumann na mBunscol football final. Unfortunately, we were defeated in the final but we are very proud of the sportsmanship and teamwork these boys displayed. 
The pupils celebrated their achievements by having food and drinks back at the school. 
​

Be Active ASAP

Picture
 Our Be Active After School Activity programme got off to a great start this week. 
​The Be Active ASAP is supported by the Health Promotion and Improvement and the HSE in conjunction with Cavan Sports Partnership. It encourages children to partake in physical activity after school in the school setting. Thanks to our parent volunteers, Caroline, Olga and Elaine who did an amazing job keeping the children moving.  Roll on next Tuesday!!!

​​                        Hurling
​The children have been having great fun learning a range of hurling skills with their coach Emmett.

Emmett visits the school every second Thursday and works with both the Junior and Senior Room. 
​
Check out our slideshow to see some images of the children training.

2020 FAI SPAR Primary Schools Competition

The Senior Class boys have been training very hard every Friday with their coach Martin for the FAI Primary School 5s Programme. The event was meant to take place on Monday 30th March and will hopefully be rescheduled for a later date. 

Active Home Week 
     April 27th - May 3rd 2020 

As you know ‘Active SCHOOL Week’ takes place every April and is a really enjoyable part of the school year for our children. This year, because of Covid-19 it is not possible for this to go ahead so we are asking you and your the families to participate in the ‘Active HOME Week’ challenge instead.
​
ABOUT the Challenge
​
The idea of the #ActiveHomeWeek challenge is to:

  • Encourage children to find NEW ways of being physically active that they ENJOY
  • Raise awareness about the fact that children need at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day
 
To complete the challenge you have to find four different ways of being active every day making sure that this add up to 60 MINUTES, or more. You are encouraged to try something NEW, have FUN with a family activity and to ENJOY the week! Good Luck!

Please click on the images below to download the Active Home Week letter, the Active Home Week Chart and the Active Home Week IDEAS.  You can design your own chart or use the one below to complete your daily activities.  

Check out how the Pupils at Greaghrahan NS completed the Active Home Week Challenge

Well done James on completing the Active Home Week Challenge.

Well done Keira and Aidan and completing the Active Home Week Challenge.

Well done Skye and Ameila completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 
Well done Mark on completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 
Well done Kate on completing the Active Home Week Challenge.

Well done Cormac on completing the Active Home Week Challenge

Well done Evan on completing the Active Home Week Challenge.
Well done Roxy and Marcel on completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 
Well done Cillian on completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 
Well done Grace on completing the Active Home Week Challenge.
Well done Nicola on completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 
Well done Sarah on completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 
Well done Clara on completing the Active Home Week Challenge.
Well done Eve on completing the Active Home Week Challenge. 

Active Home Week 
Click on the picture below to link to the Active Home Week Padlet which has lots of great ideas to keep active at home. 

PE at Home

Picture
 Beyond the Classroom

 Beyond the Classroom resources can be used by teachers to help engage parents in their child's           physical literacy journey. Learning undertaken within physical education    class can be consolidated     and enhanced outside of school through the use of these resources.

​PAWS Water Safety 

Picture
​The Junior and Senior Classes will complete the Irish water safety PAWS programme this term. The Students complete this programme on a yearly basis as it will remind the children of the importance of being safe around water with Summer on the horizon. 
https://www.teachpaws.ie/
This programme outlines the essential life-saving guidelines that every child needs to know. Every parent is qualified to guide their children through this programme and all lessons have been adapted to facilitate home learning.  http://paws.edco.ie/
​
PAWS is now on the RTE Home School Hub available at: https://www.rte.ie/learn/2020/0513/1138157-learn-skills-that-save-lives-by-becoming-a-paws-hero/

​Click on the link below for the year group you require. ​
​

Playground Leaders​

Playground leaders have a very important role in encouraging the younger pupils to be active during lunchtime. The classes have  rota of whom is participating in playground games. The playground leaders are responsible for organising the equipment, setting up the games in the yard and packing up afterwards. They will be great for encouraging and motivating everyone to get involved and to have fun. 
​                              Junior Classes 
  • Skipping 
  • Hula Hooping 
  • Parachute 
  • Hopscotch 
  • Elastics 
  • Target Throwing 
  • Foam Polo 
  • Swing Ball 
  • Street Handball (a brilliant game!) 
  • Hurdles Agility Station (ladders, balancing) 
  • ​Penalty Shoot Out 
                           Senior Classes
  • Senior Yard Leagues
  • Street Handball
  • Tag Rugby
  • Netball
  • Uni-Hoc
  • Foam Polo
  • Spikeball/Blanket Volleyball
  • Prison Break
  • Table Tennis
  • Soccer Hopscotch
  • ​Elastics

Rainy Day Breaks/ Active Breaks

At Greaghrahan NS we want to ensure the children get physical activity in their classrooms, even when it is raining and they are unable to go outside.The Active Committee compiled a list of physical activities that can be done very easily in our classrooms everyday.
  • Disco Breaks Drop Everything and Dance 
  • 10 @ 10 
  • Go Noodle 
  • Cosmic Yoga 
  • Joe Wicks Body coach 
  • Bizzy Breaks​

Active School Motto Competition

Design a Poster Competition 
As part of our Active School Flag Greaghrahan NS have an Active School Motto 
It's good to run
It's good to play 
Keep us active 
EVERYDAY
We are asking you to design a poster to promote our ACTIVE SCHOOL Motto. You can use A4 or A3 paper and get as creative as you would like.
Closing Date Friday 15th May 2020
The winner will be announced Friday 22nd May 2020 and a special prize is to be won. 
Entries can be posted back to the school or a photograph taken and emailed to [email protected]

Junior Room

Senior Room

Active School Flag Survey​

This year we aim to apply for our First Active Schools Flag.
To do this we need to promote sports and physical activity in our school and we need your help! Below are two surveys about sports in our school: one for parents and one for the pupils.
Thank you for your help.

Click to complete the surveys below. 

Parent Survey

Pupil Survey

Virtual Explore Cavan Challenge

Healthy Kidz / Greaghrahan National School Virtual Sports Day
​Monday 22nd June 2020

​Usually during Term 3 of the school year, we’d be spending this time preparing for our Annual School Sports Day and this year, in order to encourage activity at home and as part of our Active Flag Application, we are having a Virtual Sports Day on Monday 22nd June 2020. The children will be given a task to practise each day over the next two weeks and on Monday the 22nd June we will use these skills in our whole school Virtual Sports Day. Details of the day are outlined in the document attached.

Monday 8th June 2020

Tuesday 9th June 2020

Wednesday 10th June 2020

Thursday 11th June 2020

Monday 15th June 2020

Tuesday 16th June 2020

Wednesday 17th June 2020

Marathon Challenge & Obstacle Course

Thursday 18th June 2020

Virtual Sport's Day Monday 20th June