PE in Ballina Primary school

Every class (Juniors to 6th) has a timetabled slot for minimum 60 minutes PE each week. 

All classes engage in a range of PE activities which cover all the strands of the curriculum. Rang 1 and Rang 2 usually complete a 6 week block of swimming lessons, but this year this could not go ahead. 

Athletics

​Outdoor and Adventure

​Games

​Dance

Gymnastics
We chose Gymnastics as our Priority PE strand for further development during school years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. An outside coach, Rody Kennedy from RK Sports, assisted in the teaching of Gymnastics. Each class received a minimum of 8 weeks gymnastics, and Rody has taught both the children and teachers. Teachers are learning from him and asking questions during each session to improve confidence and ability to teach this strand independently. A set of P.D.S.T. gymnastics skills cards (received during a CPD summer course in PE) have been printed and put in the P.E. storeroom as an extra resource for class teachers.

​FMS and pssi plans

After attending a Fundamental Movement skills training day, the 'Move well, move often' posters and manuals were purchased. Each class has a copy of the Move Well, Move Often manual and use the teaching points and games to incorporate FMS into their PE lessons. PSSI lesson plans are printed out for each class and stored in the PE store room. 

Fundamental Movement Skills in action!
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​land paws 

Junior Infants and 6th Class have been learning about staying safe on or near water. Splash and River from the Land PAWS programme have lots of important messages about Water Safety - Always have an adult with you, Look out for Lifeguards and life buoys, stay away from the water's edge, and many more. Both classes really enjoyed the interactive activities and answering the questions about what they had learned. Junior Infants coloured pictures with important water safety messages, 6th Class designed their own posters and made summaries of the most important messages about water safety. 

pe storeroom and equipment

Each year, we do a PE equipment audit - organise the storeroom and dispose of old and broken equipment. We are extremely lucky to have won the 'Aldi Play Rugby' sticker collection overall prize so we cannot wait to order lots of new and exciting equipment to further develop our PE lessons and activities. Thanks to Muinteoir Adrian for organising the sticker collection, to the families in our school for shopping in Aldi and collecting the stickers, and of course to Aldi for the wonderful prize.