Fingal Athletics League 2024

After a very enjoyable experience last year, boys and girls from 3rd - 6th Class returned to Porterstown Park on 27th February, and again on 19th March, to take part in the Fingal Athletics League.  The children ran the following distances:

• 3rd Class - 300m
• 4th Class - 400m
• 5th Class - 500m
• 6th Class - 600m

On Wednesday 24th April we attended the finals day in ALSAA sports complex where Hansfield ETNS were announced the winner for Dublin 15 schools!  Well done to all our athletes.  We proudly display our shield at the front entrance of our school.

Cricket with Killian

In Term 1, Killian visited our school every Monday for 6 weeks to teach cricket to our three 3rd classes.  The children loved the lessons and worked on developing many of their Fundamental Movement Skills, including running, striking with an implement and throwing.  He has returned for Term 3 to give lessons to our three 6th classes.

​Active Walkway
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On Monday 15th April, HETNS launched our first Active Walkway.  Around our school building there are 14 colourful signs.  On each sign you will find a flag, a time, a shape and letters.  These signs create excellent opportunities for many orienteering activities.  Our ASF members, along with some extra helpers from Emma’s 3rd Class, created posters to go alongside these with different exercises (eg. gallop like a horse, flutter like a butterfly, wiggle like a worm).  We hope to change these posters regularly so that classes are presented with new, fun challenges every time they complete the Walkway.  A special thank you to our caretaker, Aleks, who placed the signs up around the school.  We look forward to getting great use out of our Walkway!

Track and Field Programme 

Over the past few weeks, 1st and 4th class have been taking part in a Try Track and Field Programme with our coach Louise.  They have enjoyed practising their running , jumping and throwing skills.  Check out some pictures below.

​Skip-a-thon 2024

On 29th February, our pupils took part in a SKIP-A-THON to raise funds for our Active Walkway.  Our pupils were practising at home and in school, during break times, before the big event and all that hard work paid off.  There was alternative foot jumps, criss-cross skipping, backwards jumping,  paired skipping and much more.  It was a hopping success thanks to the enthusiasm and effort of all children.  Check out some highlights of the day below!

Playground Equipment

Our pupils have enjoyed playing with a variety of P.E. equipment at break times over the past few months.  This year, we divided the playground into different zones and allocated some of our P.E. equipment to playground games.  Activities in the zones include hula hoops, skipping ropes, throwing scarfs, beanbags, basketball and football.  Our Active Leaders are in charge of setting out the active zones at the beginning of yard time and collecting the equipment at the end of yard.  Our friendly squad have been helping out on the Junior yards, demonstrating to our younger children how to use the equipment and teaching them how to play a variety of playground games.

Active Break Every Day Challenge

As part of working towards our Active School Flag, Hansfield ETNS took part in an Active Break Every Day 4 week challenge! During the month of November each class took part in a daily movement break.  These movements breaks included exercises in the classroom, walks around the school, games on yard, dancing, running and much more.  The children loved taking part in the movement breaks.  It was a fantastic way for them to re-energise their bodies and their brains, helping them to focus and concentrate better. Many classes have now decided to make a daily movement break part of their school day! Check out some pictures from the challenge below.

​Marathon Kids and David Gillick visit 
Our three 5th classes took part in the Marathon Kids programme for 8 weeks in September and October this year. Over this 8 week period, they gradually increased their running distances each day and each week. At the end of the 8 weeks, they were invited to participate in the ‘Final Mile’ event in Morton Stadium in Santry. As part of this Marathon Kids programme, we also had a visit from Olympian David Gillick. He spoke with each of the 5th classes and did some running with them outside afterwards. He gave them all the motivation that they needed to complete the final few weeks of the programme!

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​Active Flag Slogan Competition

As part of working towards our Active Flag, our Active Committee ran the ‘Hansfield Active Slogan Competition’. This competition involved children in all classes in the school designing a poster and slogan that encourages students to exercise and get fit! The Active Committee launched this competition within their own class and with their partner class and they then collected up the entries after the two weeks. They judged all of the entries and the winning slogan that was chosen was ‘Don’t Sit, Don’t Quit, Stay Fit!’ which was designed by Fatima and Aymen in 5th class. Well done to all the children who designed such brilliant and motivating posters! 

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The Active Committee looking through all the brilliant posters!  

Our winners! 

Run around Ireland Challenge

As part of working towards our Active School Flag, Hansfield ETNS took part in a Run Around Ireland Challenge for 4 weeks. This challenge started when we returned to school after the Spring Break, on the 18th of April, and finished up last Friday the 12th of May.

During this time, each class built 1 or 2 running breaks into their school day, with the aim of running to as many famous Irish landmarks over the 4 weeks as they could. It was an excellent way for children to learn about some of Ireland’s most famous landmarks and ideal for bringing learning outdoors.
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• Each class noted down how many kilometres they completed each day (1 lap of the yard = 1 km) on their challenge chart and ticked off the landmarks as they reached them.
• The Active Committee members from each class then stuck the landmark tokens up on the whole school progress chart on the Active Flag board.
• At the end of every week, Active Committee members went around the school to each class and totalled up which class in each year group had completed the most amount of kilometres that week.
• The Active Committee members then made an announcement over the intercom and commended the winners of each year group.

Most classes loved the Run Around Ireland challenge so much that they will be continuing it as a movement break until the end of June!

Check out our photos video above.......

Physical Education

All pupils in HETNS are provided with 60 minutes timetabled P.E. per week.  Each year, all classes are taught at least five of the six different P.E. strands: Athletics, Aquatics, Dance, Gymnastics, Games and Outdoor and Adventure.  All pupils from 1st – 4th attend swimming lessons in the National Aquatic Centre.  Our school teaches the Land PAWS Water Safety Programme to all classes.
 
Teachers use the PSSI lesson plans and the ‘Move Well, Move Often’ resources to guide their delivery of the PE Curriculum. Members of staff have undertaken CPD in Physical Education during the past 12 months.  Knowledge and resources are frequently shared among staff members.  Please click on the links below for more information.


PE Curriculum
Scoilnet – Move Well Move Often
pssi.pdst.ie/  


For the 2023/2024 school year we have chosen to prioritise and focus on Dance for further development.

Active Week and Sport's Day 2023

We had a fantastic Active School's Week in HETNS.  Every morning an active challenge was announced over the intercom for all classes.  These included timed jumping jacks, wall sits and the plank.  It was a great way to start the day!  Other daily activities included Drop Everything and Dance, goNoodle breaks and daily Active homework exercises.  Classes enjoyed a variety of activities throughout the week including Tag Rubgy, GAA, Jiu Jitsu, Running Races, Dance and Yoga.  On Thursday we had our Sport's Day.  JI - 2nd class stayed on the school grounds for some station based activities and 3rd -6th ventured to Ongar Park for an action-packed day of sport.  It was lovely, sunny day and as always the ice-cream truck was the highlight of the day!

​Check out some of the pictures below.

Please complete our Parent Survey here

​Hansfield ETNS is currently working towards attaining our first Active School Flag!
 
What is the Active School Flag?
 
The Active School Flag is a Department of Education initiative supported by Healthy Ireland.

The Active School Flag is awarded to schools that strive to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. The process aims to get more schools, more active, more often. Our challenge will be to find interesting and exciting ways to energise the school day because active children are happy learners!
 
Please keep an eye on the website for updates on how we have been getting active in school! Also, we know that parents have some brilliant ideas on how we could increase the physical activity levels of our children. Please complete the survey below and share your ideas with us!
 
Our Active School Committee
Our ASF committee is made up of both teachers and students. Students were elected from each class from 3rd - 6th and these elected members are each paired with a younger class in our school. 

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Student Surveys

​6th class members - Aryan, Adam, Leon, Joseph

5th class members - Hannah, Ali, Zoe

4th class members - Hrithvick, Dáire, Dhaanvie, Fennec, Augusto
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3rd class members - Adam, Kai, Vihaan

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The Active Committee recently carried out two surveys with all classes from 1st - 6th. The results of these surveys are below. 

Parent Surveys

As we are working towards getting our Active School Flag, we need to promote sports and physical activity in our school as much as possible and we need your help! We would greatly appreciate all our parents taking the time to complete the below survey. 

​Parent Survey