Our PE schedule for the year

Each month, we focus on a different strand of the PE curriculum. 
September + October: Games
November + December: Dance
January + February: Gymnastics
March + April: Athletics and Aquatics
​May + June: Outdoor and Adventure
​Check out our PE policy in our Curricular Policy section of the website for more info. 

Aquatics

Children in 1st class to Senior Infants have the opportunity to going swimming to practice their aquatic skills. The children go to the National Aquatic Centre for 6 lessons each year.
The children in Sonas and Spraoi also go to Finglas Swimming Pool every Tuesday.
Junior and Senior infants participated in the Land Paws programme. Land PAWS is a water safety programme which taught us all about how to stay safe in the water. They learned about staying safe at the swimming pool, at lakes and rivers and around farms. At the end, they all earned the Land Paws cedrtificate. Junior and Senior Infants were very proud of their achievements. 

Athletics

During PE lessons, all classes participate in athletics activities such as running, jumping and throwing. We focus on Athletics in the months of March and April so that we are reading for our big Fun Day races at the end of the year.

Dance

In dance, we have been learning how to perform dances. 5th and 6th class learned some European folk dances such as La Vinca from Italy, German Clap Dance and French Peasant's Dance. Children in Junior and Senior infants have been making up their own dances. The children were working in pairs to perform a mirror dance where one child made up 5 dance moves to music and the partner had to mirror the moves. They performed these dances in front of the rest of the class and did 2 stars and a wish peer assessment. This involved the children saying 2 things they liked about the dance and something they would like to add or change to improve the dance. The pupils responded to this really well and all the children were so chuffed with the positive comments about their dancing. 

Games

Every year, we start our PE lessons with the Games strand. Junior classes learn a lot of playground games such as duck duck goose, what's the time mr wolf and the bean game. The children love playing these games and will often play them together at break times too or as part of our Active Lines. The children in the older classes play games such as soccer, unihoc and rounders.

Gymnastics

Children in all classes take part in Gymnastics during PE lessons and as part of a series of gymnastics workshops. In gymnastics, we develop skills to carry out balances and travels to create a gymnastics sequence. We practice rolls, handstands and cartwheels. 

Outdoor and adventure

In the summer months, the children take part in many exciting outdoor adventure activities. The children in 5th and 6th class take part in the Leinster School's Orienteering League and enjoy the competitive aspect and the trips away to different parks and forests around Leinster. Children develop their orienteering and map reading skills in PE lessons and also take part in Orienteering workshops.
We have identified Outdoor and Adventure as our priority strand for 2023/2024. This means that teachers will complete additional training and research in areas such as orienteering, so that we can implement high quality PE teaching in this area. In 2024, we hope to move to our new school site, meaning that we will have new grounds for completing outdoor and adventure activities in. The school has invested in balance equipment to help children develop gross motor skills. We also are planning to install a walkway on our new school site, which will be enjoyed by all classes.

Fundamental Movement Skills

Fundamental Movement Skills refer to a set of gross motor skills that involve different body parts and are developed through PE lessons. Every two months, we focus on one fundamental movement skill across the whole school. These are our focus skills:

PE Homework

Incorporating Physical activity into our homework is very important to us. A survey was conducted amongst parents and pupils to get their opinions on physical activity and homework. The results found that: 87.5% of pupils enjoyed active homework all or some of the time. A survey was recently conducted in as we redeveloped our homework policy. It found that 82% would like active homework incorporated in the homework policy. 
​Following from the development of our homework policy, physical activity has been implemented into the homework programmes of all classes.