The Active School Slogan
‘Hop, skip, jump and play… Holy Trinity does it every day!’
Our school held a competition at the beginning of the year to find a whole school slogan that would encourage physical activity in our school. Many talented pupils entered, however we could only pick one. Thanks to Layla Conolly for her brilliant slogan which can be seen on display in the lobby.
Active Agents
Our Active Agents help us to ensure that Holy Trinity truly is an active school. They have played many major roles in the process of renewing our Active Flag. They enable the provision of P.E. through the upkeep of the P.E. store room. Here all of our equipment is organised and stored safely. 6th Class pupils often help out teachers by setting up their P.E. lesson for them prior to bringing their class out. Steven and James from Mr. Henry’s make sure all P.E. gear is collected and returned to the store room with their weekly check-ups. The Active Agents set up and run active zones in our yard for 3rd and 4th Class daily. They have a skipping area, a hula hoop area and a games zone. Isabelle , Lauren and Eva in 6th Class change the rota for our Active Zones daily. Pupils also circulate Active Teddies from class to class while Shane and James set up the speaker on Fridays for Music.
G.A.A.
Holy Trinity S.N.S. has a long running partnership with local G.A.A. club Trinity Gaels. The local G.A.A. officer, Neil, comes in and coaches each class for a five week period in Gaelic Football. Neil is passionate about developing the fundamental movement skills of children through the teaching of Gaelic Football. Trinity Gaels is only one of many local clubs that some children in the school are members of.
Holy Trinity has very strong roots with G.A.A. with Croke Park announcer Jerry Grogan being a former principal here for many years. It is fantastic to see children playing with their local clubs as it really strengthens our school teams in Gaelic Football, Hurling, Camógie and Ladies Gaelic Football. Many of the current staff themselves play with local G.A.A. clubs which not only sets a great example for the children in our school but enables them to coach teams for the Cumann na mBunscol competitions every year. Check out some photos of our teams below!
Tennis Ireland
3rd and 4th Class students get to spend their Monday mornings on the yard playing tennis with our local coach Luke. This partnership was founded many years ago and is still going strong. Children get to get as many touches of the tennis ball as possible as most activities are carried out in pairs or small groups.
Leinster Rugby
In recent years a partnership has been founded between our school and Leinster Rugby. Their Fingal Representative, Stephen, coaches each of the sixth classes for a period of 4-5 weeks. Tag rugby, although relatively new to the school, is very much enjoyed by everyone who gets to participate. All the children enjoyed partaking in this new sport in Holy Trinity. The children were then invited to partake in a rugby Blitz on the 13th of December in Sutton against other schools from the area. All Information and resources on the sport was shared with all teachers in the school. We now have a tag rugby set in Holy Trinity so as a school we can continue to develop our skills and understanding in our new sport.
Dance
Local hip-hop teacher Amy of Mindkrash Dance School, Baldoyle introduced our 5th and 6th Class students to Hip-Hop Dancing last year. Children thoroughly enjoyed dancing to current pop music in a fresh and modern way. Parents and guardians were lucky enough to witness how this work culminated as each of the senior classes got to perform their dance at the Christmas shows held in December of last year. Hip Hop will be starting up again in the school after the Halloween break. Thanks to St. Kevin’s for loaning us their P.E. hall. Check out our whole school Thriller which was taught to us by the lovely Amy.
Park Run
Ms. Keating, an avid runner, got in touch with the local Park Run in St. Anne’s Park, Raheny to see if they would liaise with our school. Gillian and Paul from Park Run came in to speak to classes in school and to encourage them to take part in their local park run. On Sunday the 7th of April our school made a big push to get as many Holy Trinity pupils to register and take part in the 2km Park Run in Saint Anne’s. With both Ms. Monaghan and Ms. Keating present to keep track of attendance they were please to hand out a no homework reward to more than 40 pupils! It was truly great to see the community spirit on that fine Sunday morning.
A massive congratulations to Ryan Filardi who was the first to cross the finish line from Holy Trinity. Well done Ryan! Keep up the good work 🙂
Boxing
All the 6th Classes in Holy Trinity partook in a five week non- contact introductory Boxing programme. This was run with Noel Burke who is Boxing Development Officer with Dublin City Council & Irish Amateur Boxing Association. After this, a group was selected to continue the programme in the National Stadium which accumulated with them getting the opportunity to compete against someone from a different school. The children really enjoyed this opportunity to learn new skills, gain in self-confidence and improve their fitness levels.
The classes culminated in a group of the children going to the National Boxing Stadium to train and compete against other children their own age from County Dublin. As you can see from the photos below the children had a ball!
What Club Are You In?
Ms. O’Neill’s 6th Class carried out a survey amongst the senior students of Holy Trinity to find out exactly what clubs our pupils were members of. Her class were very surprised by the diverse range of clubs that the children of Holy Trinity involve themselves in.
Check out the results here: What Club Are You In?
Wall of Achievement
We in Holy Trinity SNS are very proud of all the children in our school. As a result of this, we have a Wall of Achievement in Holy Trinity . This is where children can bring in photos of them involved in sport inside and outside of school and we put them up on display. This shows the children their achievements in sports and physical activities outside school are valued just as much as those achievements within school. Regularly, children also visit classes showing their medals and trophies that they have won in their chosen sports.
Pupil Questionnaire
Ms Monaghan’s class carried out an online survey with a variety of Classes from 3rd to 6th. Check out the results of it !
From carrying out these surveys our Active Team got together to act on some of the requests received from the school boy. 5th/6th had a Soccer tourament, 3rd & 4th had a Dodgeball one. Teachers were told of pupils wish to have 2nd task to do when knocked out of PE games. An active walkway was put in place for the requested running track. Footballs are now used at little break in the 5th/6th yard. An area has been assigned for soccer to ensure the safety and enjoyment of all in the yard can occur. While we didn’t commence our own running club, the school partook in a local Park Run highlighting local running initiatives.
Parent Questionnaire
Parents have a very important role in our school. All updates and initiatives for the Active Flag was shared with the parents through the Parents Association Facebook page and through letters sent home. Parents were invited to many ASF events throughout the year such as our Santa Dash and the Park Run and Danceathon during Active Week 2019. Parents were also involved in our Active Flag weekly through Fit4Fun challenges been given to children to complete on the day of their PE at school.
Parents opinions on school initiatives is very important to us here in Holy Trinity. Hence ,we carried out a survey on the Active Flag for parents to get their views on school initiatives in relation to PE and physical activity in our school. You will see the outcomes of the survey below.
Outcomes
Staff were told of parents wish of more feedback on their child’s PE progression.. Initiative were started to get more to Walk/Cycle to school. Signage put around school & daily surveys were conducted on sponsorship walk week. We also completed ‘ Scores on the Doors’ during Active Week encouraging Active Travel.
Here are some information sheets for parents