Partnerships

Another aspect of school life we are enhancing is how we travel to school.

There has been tremendous effort at walking to school rather that driving. This feeds into our active school efforts, but also to our Green school initiatives.

This interestingly has strong links also with the UN Sustainable Development Goals: ‘Good Health and well-being’, ‘Climate Action’ and ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’.

This is such a healthy way to start the day.

Well done to all that are walking to school, including the parents!

We are delighted that we can do our own small bit to contribute to these goals which are implemented on a worldwide scale! Lets keep up the great work for as long as is possible and get those steps in early each morning!

 

It also helps prevent a build up of traffic at the school gates which is helping to make arrival and departure from school safer and more efficient.

The Great Travel Challenge is a Green School’s initiative run in collaboration with Fingal.

This two week challenge takes place on the on the weeks beginning 14th of February

and 28th of February.

Those who walk every day are rewarded with a small prize.

       

                                     

 

This has been a huge success with 96% 

from 3rd to 6th walking to school  and 94%

of those from Juniors to 2nd walking to school.

This is wonderful for the environment and it also  links in with our active school goals.

The children are getting in physical activity before

the school day begins. Thanks also to the many parents

that enabled such high participation by accompanying

the younger children on their walk to school each morning.

Well done everyone!

 

Meet our new Active School Team!

Juniors – 2nd Class

3rd-6th Class

Our new team are busy motivating their classmates by being Active Line Leaders, organising P.E equipment for active yard breaks and by attending Active School meetings.

There is also an extended Active Schools team comprising of playground leaders who help the Active School team to organise and sanitise equipment for Active breaks.

 

 

Our Slogan is “Be Wise, Exercise”.

Over the years we have had coaches come to the school to provide soccer, Gaelic football, golf, basketball and rugby lessons.

We introduced the children to swimming lessons in Aura (Drogheda) two years ago.

We provided after-school Physical Activity classes such as soccer and Rinka before the emergence of Covid.

 

 

We have a standardised timetable for the whole school.

The Active school team, teaching staff and playground leaders have  clear roles and responsibilities for the provision, maintenance, sanitisation and collection of P.E equipment for Active Yard breaks.

The storeroom for P.E equipment has timetables for P.E.

P.E equipment rotation and lists of teacher lesson planning resources for ease of accessibility for all.

I

For the month of May, all class levels have been taking part in the Run/Walk Around Europe Challenge.

This is a walking/jogging initiative which encourages the children to go outdoors and complete laps of the front yard or if the weather permits laps of the football pitch at the back of the school.

Each lap of the front of the school yard equates to 1 mile (1 hypothetical mile that is!) and each lap of the back of the school equates to  2 1/2 miles.

Teachers total the laps covered daily by each class and record the totals on a grid.

At the end of the month we will see which country each class got closest to!

The children enjoy going out for their daily laps of the yard. It benefits their well being, their concentration and adds towards achieving their recommended 60 minutes of physical activity daily. It’s a win -win situation!

It also gives the children a well earned movement break from their lessons indoors.

The fresh air and exercise energizes and re-motivates them for their next class lesson.

Thursday May 27th, 

The children and staff of Naul National School did the Walk around Ireland challenge. This is about 3170 kilometers. We walked around the back of the school 3170 times cumulatively (the back is close to half of a kilometer).

 

 

 

 

We launched our Active School Walkway on the day of the Sponsored walk/ Walk around Ireland challenge.

 

 

Walkway signs run around the perimeter of the green area at the back of the school.

 

 

 

 

Junior and Senior Infants walked from the Giant’s Causeway to Newgrange.

The 1st and 2nd classes walked from New Grange to Hook Head in Wexford.

3rd/4th walked from Hook Head to Carrauntoohil.

5th and 6th classes walked from Carrauntoohil to Slieve League Cliffs in Donegal.

Finally the staff walked from Slieve League Cliffs to the Giant’s Causeway. 

The children received  sponsorship forms. We used this great fun day as an opportunity to fundraise for a school hall which is much needed to enhance the children’s learning experiences in P.E for years to come.