Physical Activity
Physical Activity is the promotion and engagement of exercise and movement in addition to the 60 minutes per week timetabled curriculum subject of physical education. St Francis Xavier JNS actively promotes the message that children require 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day.
We have been very busy this year already engaging with various initiatives and programmes to encourage our children to become more active. Our school is an inclusive school where all ASF school activities are planned so they are accessible by all pupils.
Playground breaks
- The children have two daily playground breaks during which they run, jump, skip along with engagement with our active zones
- Our yard is zoned into several different areas where children are encouraged to actively engage in various activities including, athletics, playworks games, skipping, team sports, hula hoops, construction games and imaginative play to mention a few
- Equipment is brought to the yard by our ‘playground leaders’ who distribute and organize as necessary in each zone.
- Each playground leader is trained by the ASF committee at the beginning of each term and they are identifiable on the yard by their blue bibs and children can request help when needed
- We encourage the children to ‘Do their talking while they are walking’ on yard.
School activities
- We have an established Slí na Sláinte that circles our school that the children complete regularly throughout the week as part of our active classroom breaks
- From the 11th November for 4 weeks we completed the Active Break everyday challenge as a whole school initiative and a big congratulations to Mrs. Murray’s class who were the overall winners
- On rainy days each class incorporates extended classroom based activity breaks such as Go Noodle, Bizzy Breaks, 10@10, Cosmic Yoga and Just Dance. Everyday we encourage classroom brain breaks where children engage in short bursts of activity throughout the day.
Active calendar events
- During Halloween the children took part in a Spooky Slí na Sláinte where the whole school completed a fun Slí na Sláinte dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Each class learned a Halloween dance during PE.
Active Rewards
- Our most active class receives the ‘Golden Boot’ for the most completed Slí na Sláintes in a week.