Tag Rugby in Wicklow

Yesterday our 5th & 6th class pupils attended a tag rugby tournament hosted by our rugby coach Aidan in Wicklow Rugby Club. We had a fantastic day and learned lots of new skills. We were very fortunate to have a lovely sunny day for the tournament. We played against a number of different local teams including Holy Rosary, St. Patricks and Gaelscoil Gaelscoil Chill Mhantáin. There was great commitment and team effort demonstrated on the day, we are extremely proud of the boys and girls who represented the school so well. Take a look at some of the fun which was had.

Boys GAA Blitz in Ballinakill

Last week our 5th & 6th class boys GAA team took part in the South Wicklow Cumann na mBunscoil participation blitz. we had two teams representing us on the day and we were so proud of the boys for their wonderful performance on the day. We were especially proud of the boys who had never played GAA before this year. These boys were encouraged and supported in their preparation by their classmates. The blitz took place in Ballinakill Sports Complex, with each team facing five other teams on the day.

We look forward to our next day out which will be in March 2023.

Sports Day Compilation

Take a look at a compilation of our Sports Day which took place on 15th June at Ashford GAA grounds.

Skipping with Skipnrope

We were delighted to welcome Mark from Skipnrope to our school to do a skipping workshop with all the classes. Skipping is key fundamental movement skill that is so important for the children to master and is also a great fun exercise!

Mark showed the children lots of different skipping skills and games that they will be able to use in the playground! We have invested in a large number of skipping ropes to add to our PE equipment which the children can use to exercise their newly acquired skipping skills!

Six Nations Tag Tournament

Our Active Committee were at it again this week, organising another amazingly fun day. Yesterday they arranged the tag rugby six nations for 2nd - 6th class, where mixed teams participated in a tag tournament. There was fierce determination and grit on show, as 2nd class pupils stood toe to toe with 6th class pupils, stealing their tags and earning points for their respective teams. At the end of the day, Ireland emerged victorious, with Wales coming second and France coming in 3rd place. Here’s hoping the national team can take a leaf out of our book and up their game to overcome their competitors in this years tournament.

On another note, this week we received the fantastic news that Cumann na mBunscoil tournaments will be returning, so yesterdays tournament will have helped us to build our team spirit and work on our fitness.

Active Advent Calendar

Our wonderful Active Committee created some active advent calendars for all of our classes. It’s our active take on the advent calendar. Each day in the lead up to Christmas we will be tasked with completing an active challenge. These challenges were chosen by our active committee and they range from taking 5 minutes of extra break, dancing to our favourite Christmas songs and running laps around the school.

Soccer Blitz in Ashford

Yesterday all classes from 1st to 6th walked to Ashford GAA pitch to play a soccer tournament which was arranged by the school’s Active Committee. We were blessed with stunning weather and a huge amount of fun was had by all. We are making a huge push this year to retain our Active Flag but we can already see so much improvement since our last soccer blitz day in Ashford. Some classes even got to play in the park!

Rugby this half term in Nun's Cross

This half term we have enjoyed our visits from Aidan our Wicklow Community Rugby Officer. Having our rugby on Mondays made it much easier for us to start our weeks. Thank you so much Aidan for sharing some of our fond memories of our fun and games this past half-term.

GAA returns to Nuns Cross

Today GAA coaching returned to Nuns Cross. We were visited by Darren who will be working with us all year. This term Junior Infants and Senior Infants will be learning the basic skills of gaelic football. Today they had lots of fun!

Karate at Nun's Cross

Today we were treated to a special visit from Felisity and her daughter Faith who is a past pupil of Nun’s Cross NS who came in to do a karate demonstration for all of our classes. Felisity is the mother of two students in our school and we are very grateful for her taking the time to come and visit us ahead of her return to after school karate classes from the 28th of September. Among the skills we learned were how to punch properly without hurting ourselves, the outward block & the inward block and fighting stance.

We look forward to welcoming karate classes back into the school on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning on the week of the 27th September.

Sports Day 2021

Sports Day 2021 was a very special day. It was a little different than we are used to because parents could not stay and cheer the children on but a huge amount of fun was had. Our Active Committee had put weeks of planning and preparation into the day, deciding on activities and races to be included and all their hard work paid off.

On the day we all met up at Ashford GAA pitch and we started the day off with a thrilling obstacle course. Here the children did some hurdles, some ball balancing, cargo net crawling, and sack races to get their hearts racing. It was super fun!

This was followed by our class relay races which included fly swatter golf, three legged races, wheelbarrow races, pass the baton and the capacity race. Following the relays, each class visited stations which were led by the teachers to complete activities. These rotated every 15 minutes. The stations included activities such as crab soccer, water dash, spill the sponge, caterpillar relays, hit the target, tug of war and no mans land.

Our day finished with a wonderful barbecue of hot dogs which were provided and cooked by our wonderful Parents Association. The surprises did not end there, and just when we thought it was all over we were visited by an ice cream van which again was organised by our Parents Association.

We would like to say a huge thank you to Ms Bennett and our wonderful Active Committee who arranged and pulled off an amazing day.

Colour Dash Run to end Active Week 2021

Today on our final day of Active Week 2021, we finished the week with a colour dash run with all classes taking part. So much fun was had by students and teachers alike. We have enjoyed an absolutely fantastic week where many memories were created with our friends. We would like to say a huge thank you to Ms Bennett and the Active Committee for making this week one which will stay in our memories for a very long time.

Senior Soccer at the GAA pitch

Our senior students visited Ashford GAA pitch as part of our Active Week activities on Thursday.

The Nuns Cross Grand National

Over the past two days the children have been participating in the Nuns Cross Grand National which brought huge excitement to the school. We would like to say a massive Thank You to Cooley farm who kindly provided the jumps. We also received a surprise message from Katie Walsh, Irish Grand National winner, where she offered us encouragement along with a lovely message. Take a look below…

Junior Infants …

Senior Infants…

1st & 2nd class …

3rd class…

4th class …

Active Week at Nuns Cross

This year Nuns Cross are going all out to celebrate Active Week. Our Active Committee have been working tirelessly to make this Active Week the best one yet and it has been going down a treat with all classes.

We started off on Monday morning with a Wake Up and Shake Up which was led by some of our senior pupils. No sooner were we arrived in school before we were dancing along to their tunes and trying to keep up with their actions. It was great fun!

All week we have continued our final week of the run around Ireland challenge, each day reaching a new target location. Monday finished off with relay races. These consisted of three-legged races, wheelbarrow races, sprints, piggy back races and potato and spoon races.

Monday was finished off with some good old tug of war which brought out a competitive streak in everybody, even the teachers decided to join in!

On Tuesday…

We welcomed a familiar face back to the school. Aidan our rugby coach worked with all classes to check in on how our skills have developed since his last visit in December. He was very impressed by all he saw.

On Wednesday…

We started our day off with a healthy breakfast morning. The children brought in a healthy breakfast they had prepared, inspired by a very helpful parent whose cooking tutorial was shared on SeeSaw on Tuesday afternoon. We are conscious that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and in order to keep our minds and bodies functioning to their best, we need to be fuelling our bodies accordingly.

During the day, each class had a 30 minute circult training class with Ms Pearse and her Active Committee helpers. This was a great test of our strength and stamina, as we completed a wide range of stretches and High Intensity exercises.

Later during the day our junior classes visited Ashford GAA pitch where they enjoyed a soccer tournament. Tomorrow our senior pupils will be getting their turn to showcase their skills on the big pitch.

The day finished off with a Teachers vs 5th and 6th class Students doddgeball challenge. Chants could be heard from far and wide in the run up to home time, as excited onlookers chose their side to support. The teachers emerged victorius thanks to some great skill shown by Ms Smith. a re-match must be had as the game had to be called to a premature hault due to collection time being upon us.

Tomorrow we look forward to our senior classes soccer tournament at Ashford GAA pitch as well as the Nuns Cross Grand National which will be held over the coming two days for both junior and senior pupils. Here is a sneak peak of what is in store…

On Friday, our week culminates with a colour dash run, with our run around Ireland drawing to a colourful close.

Our run around Ireland

This week we took on the Run Around Ireland challenge. All of our classes have been taking on his challenge and running every day with our combined distance totals taking us to some wonderful landmarks around Ireland. We are using coloured thumb tacks to show where we have reached and we have been having lots of fun talking about the places on this map which we have visited.

New GAA goalposts

This week we were delighted with the delivery of our GAA goalposts and 10 GAA footballs. We have been patiently waiting for this special delivery for a long time. Earlier this year, following our hugely successful Nuns Cross GAA Class Blitz, it was brought to our attention by both Student Council and the Active Committee that a set of GAA goalposts would be hugely beneficial to the children who became very inspired when training for our blitz with Kevin our GAA coach. We are looking forward to having 3rd - 6th class pupils back in school to test them out for us.

Christmas Mini Olympics at Nun's Cross

Today, after much planning and preparation, our Active Committee held the Winter Olympics in Nuns Cross NS. Our committee have worked on this for the past month, deciding on games which could be played with the Christmas theme and then shortlisting these games by allowing all classes to vote on which games were included.

Our Active Committee prepared three stations and a fun timetable full of fun and games for all classes. This morning started off with a ‘find the elf’ treasure hunt to get the classes warmed up this morning. The children had to locate elves around the school yard who then provided them with the next clue until they collected 8 Christmas baubles. It was super fun!

Our four stations consisted of ‘tinsel tug of war’, ‘snatch the Santa’, ‘rob the presents’ and ‘Santa’s sack race’. Great fun was had by all. Take a look at some of the action on the day.

Cricket with Jim

Today 3rd class were delighted to be commencing cricket training. Jim from Greystones will be working with us over the coming month as we learn the basics of the sport. Today we learned positions; wicket keeper, fielder, batsman and bowler. We learned to bat, bowl and to field. We had great fun learning cricket.

Active Schools GAA Training Day

Today the whole school participated in a GAA training day as organised by our Active Schools Committee. Having worked with Kevin our GAA coach since September, we were eager to test our skills and teamwork by having a training blitz. The junior end of the school played their matches at the school and our senior pupils made the trek down to the Ashford GAA grounds. We were absolutely blessed with such a wonderful day weatherwise, and the talent on show was top class.

Classes were each split into 4 teams and times were allocated for each match as decided by the Active Committee. We played across the main pitch where we were able to have 4 matches played at a time. Each team played every other team in their class and the winners after all of that competed in the finals.

We would like to say a huge THANK YOU to Kevin our coach and Brian and Vicky our referees on the day. The day was a tremendous success and has really inspired us to do days like this more often as a school. There was a great energy all day long and we are certain that the children will all sleep soundly tonight after their busy day. We look forward to getting our GAA goalposts in the school in the coming weeks so that we can practice a little more.