The Process: There are lots of criteria we have to meet to receive the flag. We are confident this will be an enjoyable and beneficial experience for all members of our school community.
There are targets outlined for 4 clear areas which need to be achieved.
The 4 areas are:
- Physical Education
- Physical Activity
- Partnerships
- Active School Week
Please click on the following links:
Introduction
Physical Education
Physical Activity
Partnerships
Active School Week
We, at Le Chéile are currently working towards gaining an Active School Flag for our school. It is recommended that all children get 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.
We are hoping that by engaging in this process, the above will become more achievable for all our pupils. Along with improving the physical health of our pupils we believe we will see knock-on effects in the classrooms also eg; increased concentration and focus.
Our Active Flag Committee
Our New Active School Committee 2021
The votes have been counted and verified and I am proud to announce the members of our new Active School Committee:
Sam, Henry, Eve, Jack, Imogen, Dara, Seán and Ciara
Congratulations to you all, looking forward to an Active Year ahead 🙂
Physical Education
Fundamental Movement Skills
Physical Activity
As part of our running breaks, we are hoping to run around Europe. The committee surveyed the children as to which city we will run to first. The result was Paris, France. We will use our new walkway to achieve this as a whole school. Every lap of the walkway equals 1 kilometre. That means, we will have to run 1,073 laps of the walkway to reach our destination of Paris. The committee will add up how many laps we cover each week and we will keep you updated as we go along. Paris, here we come!
European Week of Sport
European Week of Sport 23rd – 30th September
In Le Chéile we pride ourselves on being an Active School. During European Sports week, we talked about the importance of being active and living a healthy lifestyle. On Friday the 27th of September the whole school took part in European School Sports Day. Our Infant Classes danced their socks off on the yard, with the help of some wonderful 6th class dancers!!! They had a ball and cannot wait to do it again soon! The rest of the school took part in a circuit activity set up in the hall where every class had to complete a circuit of 15 stations with the guidance of our 6th class Boot Camp instructors!!! With exercises including burpees, mountain climbers, scissor jumps (no actual scissors were involved here!), step ups and many more. The tunes were pumping and the children were amazing as always. A great day was had, super effort made by all!!! Well Done J
European week of sport 2021
European Sports week took place between the 23rd and 30th of September. It promotes more active, healthier lifestyles to millions of people in Europe and beyond. European School sports Day took place on Friday the 24th of September, the same day as National Walkway Day for Active schools.
Our school celebrated by getting Active and having fun! The Junior classes took part in an “Animal Walkway” at the front of the school and classes from 1st – 6th used our school walkway on the back yard. The Walkway had some additional activities to encourage us to get moving and targeted some of our Fundamental Movement Skills. It was a super day!
Virtual Family Mile
To encourage our wider school community to get involved in European Sports week, we informed families about the Virtual Family mile where they could register online and will receive a certificate upon completion. Well done to all who took part. Your medals are worn with pride 🙂
European week of sport 2022
SPOOKY HALLOWE’EN CIRCUITS
We had great fun being Active before the midterm break with our Halloween inspired exercise stations. Some 6th class children came up with the “Spooky” circuits for everyone to enjoy!
Here are the stations they came up with:
- Throw your Treats – How many treats (beanbags) can you get in the bucket?
- Pumpkin Roll – Pencil roll across mat (one person at a time)
- Trick or Trampoline – 10 jumps on mini trampoline, give next person a go
- Eyeball Balance – balance (eye)BALL on the racket
- Frankenstein – moving like Frankenstein move a ball through the cones with your feet
- Spooky Squats – Squat whilst making a spooky face
- Tuck Jumps – Pretend you are LEAPING over a pit full of gruesome guts!
- Haunted Hurdles – jump over the hurdles, one person at a time
- Curl Ups – Lie on the mat and “rise” into a curl up!
- Ghost buster – Throw the basketball hitting the ghosts on the wall, one person at a time!
- Hockey Ghoul – Shoot the ball at the goal, using a hockey stick
- Spider Crawl – Crab walk!
- Lava Leap – Avoid the lava by jumping from hoop to hoop
- Walk the plank – walk along a bench (mats each side) walk along a line (infants)
- Zombie Step ups – Place hands on the wall (like a zombie) step up on the bench
Our Active School Commitment
Our School knows that physical Activity helps us to:
- Stay Healthy
- Have Fun
- Concentrate and focus
The pupils and staff of Le Chéile want to get more ACTIVE. Every child and staff member has signed our Active School Commitment. All our signatures are displayed on our Active School Flag Noticeboard!
“KEEP ON MOVING YOU’RE IMPROVING!”
Active School Slogan Competition 2022
This week the Active school committee had the difficult job of judging the Slogan competition. Well done to all the classes who took part, your work was amazing. The Infants completed beautiful colouring and the Slogans and art work from the other classes was original and creative.
The Finalists are:
Elle from Clodagh&Treasa’s 1st class
Ruby from Claire’s 1st class
Laura from David’s 1st class
Luca from Vicki’s 1st class
Emily V from Sean’s 3rd class
Ella from Katie’s 3rd class
Teagan from Maureen’s 4th class
Sophie from Kim’s 4th class
Isabella from Susan’s 5th class
Charlotte from Nicola’s 5th class and
Andrew from Sadhbh’s 6th class
WELL DONE!
The finalists’ slogans are displayed outside the PE hall and all classes are being asked to vote for their favourite, the overall winner will be announced next week
Also massive Congratulations to our colouring competition winners from Infants:
Mia from Laura’s Junior Infants
Oscar from Emma’s Junior Infants and
Hughie from Julie’s Senior Infants
GREAT JOB!
‘Active Break Every Day’ challenge November 11th- December 6th
One of the ASF success criteria requires schools to organise an ‘Active Break Every Day’ challenge as a whole school activity. While schools are free to run this challenge at any point in the year we are completing it during the national dates: November 11th – December 6th
The ASF committee members have visited all classes to explain the ‘Active Break’ challenge (each class must complete an active break during class time each day; this may be a walkway break, dance or exercise break) the committee also delivered a laminated challenge chart to each classroom. Which they have placed outside their classroom door, the committee members will check the progress of each class over the coming weeks
Each week the committee will award each participating class with a sticker on their chart … at the end of the four weeks, the classes who achieve four stickers will be awarded a certificate for participating and a night of “ACTIVE HOMEWORK” instead of written homework. SO everyone at home gets to be more active too!
Keep on moving, you’re improving!
Active Break Challenge- a BIG success!
ALL classes took part in our Active break a day everyday for 4 weeks challenge. It took place during the national dates: November 11th – December 6th Our Active school committee were super busy checking up on all the classes and ensuring that everyone was filling out their ‘Active Break Chart’ displayed outside their classrooms. The Committee then went around to award every class in the school with a certificate for their achievements and to tell them they had been granted a night of Active Homework for all their hard work.
WELL DONE EVERYONE!!!
12 DAYS OF FITNESS
Our committee were so delighted with how active the school had been during November, they wanted to keep it up during the run up to our winter holidays. Our slogan “Keep moving, you’re improving” encouraging us to keep going!
The committee came up with a list of ideas to showcase to the classes, ideas that could be used during the days leading up to our break. These activities could be used in the classroom:
• 12 days of fitness
• Reindeer Pokey
• Penguin Dance
• Santa Clones Crazy Christmas Dance
• Santa Shark Dance
• Kids Yoga Christmas Special
• Rudolf Relays
• Snowball Rolls
• Santa dash
Check out the pictures, everyone seems to be enjoying these fun activities!!!
A "spring" in our step!
The ASF committee have been super busy since the new year. We met in early January where it was decided that the students in our school and committee members wanted to get our yards more active! The ASF committee discussed numerous ways in which we could do this. They have worked very hard and have implemented the following activities during break times:
JUNIOR YARD: Every Friday the ASF committee and other volunteers from their classes help the infants to take part in active games and exercise stations on their yard. Some Fridays they have a disco on the yard … this is a big hit with the kids and teachers alike!
MIDDLE YARD: Every Wednesday the ASF committee and other volunteers from their classes help to set up games and activities for one class grouping from the middle yard. Games include skipping, target practice, hula hoops, bowling, connect four etc. This also frees up extra space for the other children on the middle yard to have more room to run and play.
SENIOR YARD: The ASF committee organised that when the senior children are brought to the field for lunchtime, they bring some equipment with them such as balls and hoops to encourage more movement and activity.
The ASF committee are a super bunch of hard working kids who give up their break times to help get our school more active! We thank them and the extra volunteers from their classes! And a big shout out to the teachers giving up their breaks to help supervise the activities! It is much appreciated.
Our school is living up to its slogan… “Keep moving, you’re improving”.
Le Chéile's 5K Walk/Run Friday 26th February 2021
2021/2022 Active Yards
The Active Schools committee worked hard getting our yards more active. Every child from Junior infants, Senior Infants, 1st classes and 2nd classes have received their own light bouncy ball to play with during break times. The middle classes have received a number of large bouncy balls and targets to play with and senior classes have been given basketballs to play with during break times. The middle and senior children are also allowed to bring in skipping ropes to use during break times. Everyone is really enjoying playing with this new equipment at lunchtimes and it really is getting everyone active and moving! Thank you to our committee for their hard work and to our school for funding this new equipment.
JANUARY 2022
Children on the Front Yard enjoying their Active Break for FEEL GOOD FRIDAY.
They enjoyed dancing to: Baby Shark, Hokey Pokey, Chicken Dance, Learning station songs, Shake your Sillies Out and Body boogie.
Le Chéile ETNS Soccer Tournament 2022
This year 5th and 6th classes have taken part in a soccer tournament. Each class made up four randomised teams out of the people that wanted to play as it was optional to take part. The teams were sorted from A to D in each class but they were not streamed, there were four to five players on each of these teams. The tournament took place twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays at big break in the PE hall. One team from each class would go to the PE Hall on the chosen days and would play against the opposite team in their year.
After each team got to play two matches there was a final between Nicola’s 5th class and Susan’s 5th class and another final between Aimee’s 6th class and Sadhbh’s 6th class.
Well done to everyone who took part and a massive thank you to ALL the teachers who organised and supervised the matches .
Written by Róisín Burke
Aimée’s 6th Class
Run Around Ireland challenge
There is fierce competition in our school at the moment as we take part in the Run Around Ireland Challenge. It is an AS challenge which is running nationally for four weeks. We started on Monday the 23rd of March and we will finish on the Friday of Active School Week. Each class has been running and walking laps of our walkway, each lap equates to 1km. We clock our kms and we visit different Irish Landmarks all over our country. The children are enjoying the exercise and learning all about different tourist attractions in Ireland. There will be prizes for the classes who run the furthest distance! KEEP IT UP!!!
Hockey Schools' Cup
On Sunday the 24th of May some of the girls from 5th and 6th class in Le Chéile played in a Hockey Blitz. They were representing our school Le Chéile ETNS. In the end they made it to the final with a score of 2 to 1 to Le Chéile. Well done Girls J
Written by Sarah, 6th class
Partnerships
IPPEA Competition for European School Sports Day
The Active School committee entered a competition with Irish Primary PE after European Sports Day. We emailed photos and told them all about the wonderful circuits that were set up and run by the committee. They thought we did a brilliant job and sent us some PE equipment to say well done! YEY!!!
Help from our Parents
A huge thank you to our Parents who helped us out during Active School Week 2022.
We had a parent who kindly did yoga sessions with our two 2nd classes. They really enjoyed it 🙂
A parent came in to speak to our two 3rd classes about nutrition and healthy eating. She had some delicious and healthy treats for us all to try. We learned great tips for Healthy lunches and snacks.
Thank you so much, we really learned a lot and thank you for giving us your time 🙂
Active School Week
Active School Week 2022
To kick off Active Week this year, the first video challenge comes from Eoin Gillick. Eoin is one of the All Ireland winning minors. Let us know how you get on with it.
Active School Week 2021
We had a really great time during Active School Week. We had many fun activities organized throughout the week:
- WAKE UP, SHAKE UP: Music and dance in the mornings on arrival to school.
- Movement breaks throughout each day
- Run Around Ireland Challenge
- Active Stations: a timetabled circuit for all to enjoy
- Animal Walks for the Infants
- Active Homework set for the week
- Daily Challenges set by staff and coaches
- Children and staff wore active wear for the week
- Certificates were awarded to all who took part.
Look at the video to see some of the fun we had during Active Week and read some reports about Active Week written by 1st Class. We cannot wait for next year!
Active School Week 2021
We are getting ready to celebrate our first Active School week in Le Chéile … we are decorating our windows and running laps for our Run around Ireland Challenge. During Active week, there will be lots of fun events in our school to encourage us all to get active. The World Health Organisation recommends that every child needs to be active for 60 minutes every day to be healthy. There will be lots of fun activities and ACTIVE HOMEWORK set for the week. Every day there will be a challenge for the children to try out at home, so please look at the school website each day for the videos… from coaches and teachers HAVE FUN!
