Active School Flag
Central Model Infants’ School are currently working towards attaining an Active School Flag.
What is the Active School Flag?
Active School Flag is a Department of Education and Skills initiative supported by Healthy Ireland. The Active School Flag is awarded to schools that strive to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. The process aims to get more schools, more active, more often.
Physical Education
The P.E. curriculum provides children with learning opportunities through the medium of movement and contributes to their overall development by helping them to lead full, active and healthy lives. There are six strands in the P.E. curriculum:
- Outdoor and adventure activities
In Central Model Infants’ School we cover all strands twice during the school year. Each class also attend four weeks of swimming lessons in Sean McDermott Street swimming pool and the ‘Land Paws’ (Primary Aquatic Water Safety) programme is taught during Active Schools Week each year. This programme focuses on water safety and land-based aquatic skills.
All classes have a minimum 45 minute slot in the school hall and classes use our large school yard for additional P.E. time and skills development.
Our P.E. plan was updated in 2019. In this plan you can find information on what strand we are working each month and which fundamental movement school we are developing. You can keep up to date by checking out our Active Schools information board inside the porch in the main building.
Active Schools Week
Our school hold our annual Active Schools Week every June. The whole school participates in a variety of games and activities each day, and set ourselves a goal of 60 minutes activity each day. It is a great opportunity for us to try out some new games, learn new skills, and have fun while being active in school. Over the past few years we have tried out skipping, basketball, football, G.A.A., dance, playground games, parachute games, gymnastics as well as having our Sports Day and Race Day in Mountjoy Square during Active Schools Week. During ASW the Active Schools Committee also set ‘Active Homework’ to help us get active at home with our families. See the Active Week tab for highlights from our Active Week last year!
Physical Activity
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.
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.