COLÁISTE BRÍDE, Clondalkin - About Our School

Coliste Bríde is a Presentation secondary school located in Clondalkin in Dublin. There are

960 girls enrolled in the school coming from a diverse range of backgrounds. The school

was completely rebuilt in 2005 and we are now lucky enough to have a bright modern

building complete with a great sports hall and lots of outdoor space for physical activity.

Our Focus on RECREATIONAL Physical Activity

Our Principal and the Senior Leadership team actively endorse the impoprtance of PE in the

school and as a result we have high participation rates in PE. However, our problems arise

in engaging our girls in physical activity outside of PE. Over the last 10 years there has been

a sharp decline in the number of students wanting to participate in competitive sport. So in

consultation with our parents in 2015, we decided to greatly reduce our involvement in

competitive school sport and focus our time and energy on extra-curricular physical activity

for recreation. We now have a well-attended fit club and games club but our greatest

success has been with cheerleading.

CHEER Leading – As voted for by the STUDENTS

One of the key things we did in 2015 when we set about improving physical activity levels

among our students was to make contact with Paula Swayne, one of the Sport and

Recreation officers in South Dublin County Council. Paula herself is passionate about

improving teenage girls’ physical activity levels and she has been so supportive over the last

few years. As we were looking to move away from competitive sport, Paula suggested

boxercise and SDCC organised and funded an afterschool boxercise class for 8 weeks. The

students themselves, supplemented by the school then continued to pay for the class for

the remainder of the year. This year Paula asked that we run a new initiative but this time

one that was decided upon and organised by the students. Our Active Committee carried

out some research and decided that cheerleading would be very popular…….and it has been

very, very popular. Over 150 students arrived for the first class with even more coming to

the second class. As we near the end of the school year numbers have reduced but there

are still about 80 students dancing, jumping, lifting and flipping every Wednesday

afternoon!

ACTIVE SCHOOL Week – WELL BEING Week

We held our first Active School Week in Colaiste Bride in 2008. This year our focus was on

physical wellbeing and spreading the 60 MINUTES of physical activity a day message. The

week was a great success with both staff and students putting in a lot of extra time and

effort.

Over the years we have had great fun with activities such as the CB Mile, our Cycle to India

to another Presentation school (on stationary bikes), our Teachers vs Local Guards match,

our Drop Everything and Dance as well as our annual class challenges and tournaments.

TRACKSUIT Tuesdays Initiative – Term 3

Our Well Being Week took place in March. Following on from this we didn’t feel that we

could hold another ASW during the National ASW (April 24th – 28th) just a few weeks later!

We decided that we would have five days of activities on five consecutive Tuesdays instead.

Since we’ve come back after Easter, every Tuesday has been “Tracksuit Tuesday”. We focus

on one particular year group each Tuesday for activities but the whole school community is

allowed to wear tracksuits, thus encouraging everyone’s participation in physical activity

throughout the day. We have a Morning Mile for all and lots of lunch time and after school

activities.