Our School Yard
We are very lucky to have a large school yard in Central Model Infants’ School which enables our pupils to run, skip, play, and explore each day. We have a variety of activities available to our pupils during yard time to encourage them to be active and further develop skills with their friends. Our yard has a football pitch, basketball hoop, skipping area, soft play area, climbing frame, space to run and explore and a garden for some quiet time. Children are encouraged to stay active during yard time by our playground leaders who distribute hula hoops, skipping ropes and other small equipment during yard time.
Our Active Walkway
You can also explore our school grounds by taking a walk along our Active Walkway. Just follow the signs around our school and you can do your talking while you are walking, have meetings on the move while getting some activity in to your day. Our Active Walkway has six zones and we thought of some activities we could do along our walkway to further work on our fitness.
International Peaks Challenge
Every year the pupils of our school learn about country in preparation for our International Assembly. The children learn lots of information about another culture, learning many fun facts, rhymes and tasting some food from that country. We then all gather together to share the information we have learned.
During this time the whole school undertakes our ‘International Peaks Challenge’. Each class is set the challenge of running as far as the highest peak in each country we are learning about. The Active Schools Committee have measured a 100m lap of the yard and each class are encouraged to work on their running skills while trying to reach each peak as a goal. This challenge usually takes place in the third term of the school year and we hope by the end of the challenge that first class will be able to jog 1000m, senior infants 800m and junior infants 500m consecutively. The race is on to see who can complete the challenge first!
Active Triangle Treats
We have an active reward system in place which helps us line up during yard time. Each break/yard time the teachers choose the best line and they get to colour in a triangle on our active triangle treats chart. The goal is the achieve 30 extra active minutes where the class can choose what they do – maybe some extra time on the climbing frame, a basketball match, game of football or just some time to explore the yard.
60 Minute Activity Challenge
During Active Schools Week and European Week of Sport the whole school undertakes a 60 minute daily activity challenge. We encourage our pupils to get active at home and at school and use the chart below to keep record of our activity.
