Active Flag 2022/23

At Mother of Fair Love we offer a variety of different sports and activities.  These may vary from year to year and class to class.  See below the list of activities we have offered:-

• Swimming
• Hurling and Gaelic Football - inter schools competitions
• Yoga
• Cycling
• Soccer - inter schools competitions & internal tournaments 
• Basketball - inter schools competitions
• Table tennis
• Daily Mile
• School Fun Days
• Active Schools Week
• Athletics

Active School Survey

ACTIVE SCHOOLS: PUPIL QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS.

We surveyed our students to find out what they liked about P.E.  in Mother of Fair Love and what improvements could be made to make our Active School even better! Our Active school pupil questionnaire revealed the following information:

• Our students really enjoy P.E class. They wish that P.E. was longer and on more days.
• They really enjoyed The Daily Mile, with 95% of respondents giving it a big thumbs up!
• The children would like to have more inter-schools competitions.
• The children didn’t really know how many minutes of physical activity that they should do every day. 
• All students loved the option of playing organised physical activity games in the playground.
• When it’s raining, the classroom based physical activity breaks are welcomed by students so that they can get off their chair and move about.
• Requests were made to have footballs available to use at break times. 
• Many asked for P.E. to be held outside more often.
• Students asked for more choice of activities - dance, yoga, cycling etc.
• Students wanted more access to the astroturf pitch

Actions Taken

• Ties with other special schools have been formed and we have had several schools visit to compete in events.
• Regular communication between the school and Kilkenny Sports Partnership to keep up to date with information on events/initiatives.
• GAA skills training courses were held during the year.
• ‘On Your Rothar’ was brought in to help students improve their cycling skills.
• Footballs and smaller balls are now allowed on the yard.
• Mr. Walsh and Mr. Dunphy use the astroturf pitch a lot more for their PE classes.

ACTIVE SCHOOLS: PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS.

We also surveyed our students’ parents and below is a synopsis of the feedback we got

• The child really enjoyed PE at school.
• As a parent, they don’t get enough information about their child’s progress in PE
• Parents think that PE homework would be a good idea.
• Their child likes breaktime out in the yard.
• We had a number of parents who would be willing to help out with PE events in school.
• Some parents would be interested in becoming involved with an Active Schools Comittee.

Active Schools Week

We have loads of activities planned for our Active Schools Week which will be running from the 6th-9th June

Physical Activity

Inter Schools Competitions

Our senior classes hosted St. Francis School, Portlaoise in November, Our Lady of Fatima, Wexford in March and St. Laserian's, Carlow in May. We had competitions in soccer, basketball, tabletennis and rings over the course of the day. A lot of fun was had by all!

Survey - What Club Are you in?

Students from Ms. McGuinness' class were tasked with surveying the whole student population around their involvement with clubs and societies outside of school. They did a fantastic job! We loved hearing about everybody's extracurricular activities and it gave some of us ideas for new hobbies.

Mrs. Walsh and Ms Lyons have been our yoga teachers over the past couple of years. The Junior end gather as a group on a weekly basis to practice their Cat, Cow and Downward Dog poses!

The Daily Mile is simple and free and gets children out of the classroom for 20 minutes every day to walk, at their own pace, with their classmates, making them fitter, healthier, and more able to concentrate in the classroom. We are very lucky at Mother of Fair Love to be so well situated in the middle of our beautiful city, where there are lots of different walking routes to choose from. We can do a different walk every single day! Pictured below is Mr. Foley's class heading off. I wonder where their walk took them?

February Internal Soccer League:

 

Physical Education

Playground Leaders

Some of our seniors have taken up the role of playground leaders this year. A Playground Leader plans, promotes, organizes and implements daily activities & special events. The duties of the playground leaders at our school are to:

• Help to organise games & activities for younger children in the playground
• Be responsible for handing out & collecting in play equipment
•  Help to make your playground a safe & happy place to play

Water Safety Ireland’s PAWS (Primary Aquatics Water Safety) outlines the essential life-saving guidelines that every child needs to know. Our 3rd – 6th classes have completed their PAWS water safety training and have been awarded their certificate of completion.

Students across the whole school are attending swimming lessons over this final term of school in the Watershed.

 

Roisin from On Your Rothar, with the help of transition year students from Kilkenny C.B.S. Secondary and in association with Kilkenny Sports Partnership came into the school and took each class once a week for 6 weeks to practice their cycling skills. Some non-cyclists became cyclists and some nervous cyclists were flying around the yard after only a few sessions. Everybody who took part had a great time.

Partnerships

Active School Flag schools work in partnership with others to promote a physically active school community.

Partnerships within and outside the school are an important aspect of the Active School Flag. When a school participates in the Active School Flag Programme it is vital to interact and engage with other organisations and clubs.

We are very lucky in other of Fair Love to have fantastic links with local organisations.

 

Active Flag 2019

Huge achievement for Mother of Fair Love having benn awarded Active School status

 

Active Flag

For the last year Mother of Fair Love students have become more and more active. We have taken on the Active Flag challenge. As well as PE we use local sports facilities in our community. We also have an Active Flag Week each year. We are taking part in the Tour of Europe Challenge 2018.