PHYSICAL EDUCATION

We have been are delighted to receive our Active School Flag! Promoting positive wellbeing is central to our work at St. Mary's and our school is one in which physical activity is valued, promoted and enjoyed by all

Many thanks to Mr. Breen for all his hard work and dedication - there was a huge amount of work in the application process for this flag. The Flag is awarded to schools where physical activity is valued, promoted and enjoyed by all. Our aim is to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community.

The Active School Flag has four success criteria:

Physical Education.     Physical Activity.     Partnerships.      Active School Week.

The process aims to get more schools, more active, more often.

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Physical Education

All classes are taught at least five different PE strands (Athletics, Aquatics, Dance, Gymnastics, Games, Outdoor and Adventure ). Our school allocates a balanced amount of teaching time to each of the different strands as well as the incorporation of the Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS). Each class receives 60 time-tabled mins of PE. 

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Local partnership Links

Our school also benefits from the expertise of external coaches from the various physical organisations within our community. This year we invited coaches from a variety of sports including Rugby, Gaelic, Soccer and Athletics. 6th class are completing the safe school cycle programme and 4th class will be travelling for swimming lessons at Riversdale leisure centre in February. In November, following their Co. Donegal Senior Football Championship win, members of the Robert Emmets Senior women's football team brought the County Championship Cup to our school. We were delighted to welcome the newly crowned County Champions after their historic win. Congratulations to everyone involved with Robert Emmets. 

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Physical Activity

As well as teaching Physical Education In St. Mary's ,we strive to encourage Physical Activity throughout the day. Every class will agree upon a set of 3 or more actions to decrease sedentary time.

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Active School Week

Our Active school week took place this year in June. Our Active Week concluded with the ever popular tug of war and the final matches in our soccer competition for 3rd to 6th class. The overall winners were the white team with red team runners up. The blue team and green team played in the third place play-off with the blue team winning on penalties! Throughout the week we ran several different initiatives such as 'Drop everything and Dance!', Walk on Wednesday, Whole school water fight in Aid of Relay for life, Sports day, Football tournament and many, many more fun activities in every class! 

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