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Well-Being Week

active schools

Girls GAA

Today our 5th and 6th class girls participated in the GAA Wicklow Times Shield Say 1. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining down on us all day long. On the day we had 13 players which was our best turnout yet for GAA with the girls. The girls played tremendously against some tough opposition and emerged as winners against Moneystown, St. Brigids and Greystones Educate Together. We are all extremely tired after our day.

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Our next day out is on the 19th of March where we will compete in day 2 of the competition.

Gaelic Football revival at Nuns Cross

Yesterday we were visited by an old friend of the school. Having met Tommy at the 5th and 6th class boys GAA blitz last week, we convinced him to come back for a visit and see how good we are at football. It was a lovely day and all classes enjoyed the sunshine for their session with Tommy. We are so grateful to Tommy for taking the time to visit us once more.

GAA champions in Nuns Cross

Today Nuns Cross NS participated in day 1 of the Coughlan Cup which took place in Bray Emmets. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining brightly and a cool chill in the air. We set off with 12 boys from 5th and 6th class who, it is fair to say, had done minimal training and our confidence was low due to our lack of competitive involvement in GAA in the past.

We were in a tough group which consisted of Wicklow Educate Together, Moneystown, St. Fergals and Gaelscoil Uí C. First up we took on the Gaelscoil which we won 6 points to 9. Having got off to a great start we continued our winning streak against Moneystown where we scored 6 points to their 3. It was a very tight affair and our boys had us on the edge of our seats. Our next match was against Wicklow ETNS who we squeezed past on a scoreline of 9 points to 6. We then enjoyed a short break before our last match, which was the most exciting of all. Some excellent persistence and excellent accuracy carried us over the line as we won the against St. Fergal’s match by the slimmest of margins.

We would like to say a huge thank you to the travelling parents who brought children to the match and not only that but who were able to replace a missing gumshield and carry out physio on the boys!

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We are extremely proud of the boys, particularly given that the majority of the team were running cross country yesterday.

Next up is a 2nd day out for the Coughlan cup which will take place on the 12th March at Bray Emmets once again.

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Running in Avondale

Yesterday students from 3rd - 6th class participated in a cross country running competition where they had to run a mile. Students ran against students from other schools in Wicklow who were in the same classes as them. They received wristbands of different colours to show how fast they were able to run the mile. The students showed tremendous determination and team spirit on the day and their efforts were rewarded. 4 students returned to the school with medals for finishing in the top ten! We are extremely proud of the students and our running club. Next up it’s a 3 mile race in Avondale in a months time.

Hurling in Nuns Cross

Yesterday we were delighted to have been joined by Philly who will be our hurling coach for the rest of this term. Although we had competed in hurling earlier on in the year, this was our first even official hurling training session. Pupils from 3rd to 6th class were involved. Philly introduced us to hurling in such a fun way, and we were so good that he taught us 5 skills on the day which will be important to us in matches. These included the hand pass, dribbling, soloing, the jab lift and the roll lift. It was so much fun!!

Take a look at our skills below.

Young Whistlers

Last Thursday, two fifth class students went to Kilcoole to be trained as Young Whistlers. This means that next year when they are in 6th class they will be refereeing Cumann na mBunscoil football competitions for younger classes. As part of their training they learned the rules and the importance of concentration. They also received a whistle and a windbreaker to use for competitions.

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“ The young whistlers course was really inspiring! I learnt so much about refereeing and concentration! everyone should try it! "

School Sports Kits

Our School sports kits have finally arrived and we are so excited to share them with you.

Last year, we held our annual Active week which included our most popular fundraising event, the Race To Galway. We raised €1000 and were able to design and create our own school sports kit with this money. The sports kit consists of a soccer set of 12 jerseys and goalie kit and 20 athletic kits in a variety of sizes. They will be well used in a variety of sporting events over the coming year and, hopefully, for many years after this one too!

Many thanks to all the parents who supported the fundraising event and made it possible to get this wonderful addition to our school. We hope you like them as much as we do!

New Sports Equipment

We were delighted to take a delivery of some brand new sports equipment today.

At the start of the year the Active Committee completed an inventory of our equipment and were shocked at how much PE resources were gone, either missing, broken, stuck in trees etc. We put together a wish list of all the things we needed to buy and this wish list was very kindly covered by our PTA. Many thanks to them for providing this much needed equipment.

The Active Committee have put a more secure system in place around the use of our equipment at break times. The children will be provided with specific playground resources at break times and are not permitted to have unsupervised access to the PE shed at any time. We hope that this will help our equipment to be around for longer. All of our new resources have been labelled and we would ask that if any of it ends up being taken home by accident that it is returned to school as soon as possible

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Running

On Tuesday,  1st October,  a group of children from the lunch time running club took part in the Wicklow Athletics Relay competition in Avondale Park. 

This was a first for all of these runners and the excitement and nerves were high! We had a girls team from 3rd Class and 5th Class and a boys team from 3rd and 5th also. The team spirit and support the children showed each other was incredible! We are so proud of our runners who ran so well despite high competition from a lot of Wicklow schools.  

We look forward to the next competition at the end of the month. 

Hurling in Bray

On Thursday, our 5th and 6th class boys represented the school in hurling for the first time in recent years. The boys participated in their first hurling blitz at Bray Emmets GAA club. In the run-up to the competition the boys trained most days during break times, lunch times and PE lessons. Their determination to participate has been immensely admirable. On the day they played 4 matches against some very tough competition. The boys demonstrated tremendous heart in battling right to the end in each match. We are delighted to have linked up with a hurling coach who will be visiting the school in the coming months to help develop our skills further. We will compete in our next hurling competition in March 2020.

Skipping Workshop

All the children had a very special workshop today delivered to them by Mark from Skipnrope.ie. Mark is an expert in all things skipping and all classes got the change to have a full skipping lesson where they were shown some skipping skills and learned new tricks. Skipping is a fundamental movement skill that is very difficult for some children to master so we were delighted that Mark could come in and teach us some new tricks.

Some of the skills the children got to learn and practice were jumping jack skips, shuffling feet forwards and backwards while skipping, skipping on one foot, swinging the rope to the left, the right and then jumping through, criss crossing arms/rope and jumping in between, double unders and the very difficult butterfly/chain skip.

All the children gathered at the end of the day to show of the things that had learned and got to demonstrate their new skills to the rest of the school! We look forward to seeing the children put their new skills into practice over the coming year!

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5th and 6th girls GAA tournament

On Thursday the 19th of September all 14 of our 5th and 6th class girls headed off to Bray Emmets to represent Nuns Cross in a GAA tournament. We had an amazing day. We had been training really hard for the last 2 weeks and our hard work was needed on the day as we had no substitutes. We played 4 matches.Our first match was against St.Fergals of Bray we won 3-1.Our next match was Kilmacanogue 1 we did really well and we won 8-3. In our final two matches we played Moneystown NS and Kilmacanogue 2, both of which we lost narrowly. We were so proud of all of our team members and especially how hard we all worked. We would like to say a huge thanks to the parents who kindly volunteered to drive us to Bray and back.

New sports equipment

There was great excitement today as our new sports equipment arrived. The children worked really hard to put it altogether and are delighted with the new range of activities we will be able to do. A big thanks again to all the children and parents for supporting our Race To Galway which enabled us to invest in all the new equipment

We invested in a new pair pf portable goal posts, a 9ft net which can serve as a tennis net, badminton net and volley ball net, a set of 40 rubber spot markers, a target goal net, a new net for our current basket ball hoop and a new basket ball hoop to complete the basket ball court.

Million Step Challenge

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Nun’s Cross are delighted to be taking part in the Million Step Challenge this year in partnership with the Wicklow Local Sports Partnership. Over the course of the week the children will take turns to wear step counters in an aim to collectively reach a million steps. Will we do it? Watch this space to see…

Reflecting on Active Week

The children have been reflecting on Active Week and we are delighted to see, through their creative writing, how much they enjoyed the weeks activities!

Read the feedback from 1st, 5th and 6th class

Running Club

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Did you know that Nun’s Cross have a running club? Ms Heaphy and Mrs Pearse are dedicating their Wednesday lunch time to showing the children a range of skills in running. We hope to enter the children in all sorts of running and athletic events over the coming year. Children from 3rd class up are welcome to join at any stage but must commit to coming each week!

Yard painting teaser

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Take a look at the transformation our yard is currently undergoing!  This wonderful burst of colour on our yard is thanks to the money we raised in our Race to Galway during active week last year.  We would like to say a huge well done to the children and also to their families and friends whose sponsorship is making this possible.

This is just a snippet of what’s in store for when we get back after Easter.  Such an exciting time at Nun’s Cross NS.