St Clares PS

St. Clare’s Convent Primary School participated in ‘Walk to School Week’ for the second year in May 2009.  Like many primary schools St. Clare’s are in a highly residential area, which makes it difficult to deal with large volumes of traffic coming to and from school.  Many pupils live just a short distance away, and we are pleased to see a large number now walking to school.

The benefits of walking to school regularly are clear.  Children are more alert in the classroom and a reduction in traffic congestion makes the school much safer.  Walking to school is an enjoyable and sociable way for children and parents to improve their health and fitness and have a positive impact on the environment.  It is also a good opportunity to educate pupils about road safety.

The pupils and their parents were also encouraged to see the links between walking to school and the whole school awareness raising work done in relation to developing healthy lifestyles and caring for the environment.

The walk to school week culminated in a school Sponsored Walk in aid of school funds.  Pupils, staff and many relatives participated in a fun and energetic trek.  Walking certainly benefits all.

Mrs Marner's P7 class worked on a measuring project with the help of their student teacher Miss O'Neill.

Miss O’Neill, spoke to the school at assembly.When I arrived here many weeks ago I noticed how fit all of you were and how you had no issues of obesity in the school but I couldn’t understand why this was. I mean, you all eat the same amount as other pupils do in different schools!!! So why are you so fit?

Well as my first couple of days went by in the school I noticed how tired I was at the end of each day from climbing the steps and it then hit me!! You’re all so fit because of the amount of stairs you climb each day.”

At the minute in P7 we are studying measurements as part of numeracy and for one of our lessons last week we decided to measure the length from the school gate to our classroom. The girls told in assembly today how we did this and what we found out.

1.We first of all split ourselves into 2 different teams; one team measuring from the school gate up and the other team measuring from the classroom down.

2.We used lots of different equipment to do our measuring with, tools like trundle wheels, measuring tapes and metre sticks.

3.Once we got our results we went back to the classroom and added them all up to get an average result for the amount we travel.

4.We counted how many times a day we climb the stairs.

1.Up to class in the morning

2.Down for break

3.Up from break

4.Down for lunch

5.Up from lunch

6.Down for home time

So we multiplied our length by 6 to see how much we climbed for 1 day. When we got our answer we then multiplied it by 5 to see how much we climbed in 1 week at school. When we got our answer we were very shocked at the amount. So we thought to ourselves ‘what local mountain is near us that we can compare the height of it with how much we climb in a week.’ We decided on Slieve Gullion, which is only a couple of miles outside Newry.

We went to the internet and searched for the height of Slieve Gullion and found it was 573m high. We divided our answer of how much we travel in one week by the height of Slieve Gullion to see what our total distance of travel was. When we got our result we were all SHOCKED! We had found that by coming to school every week we climb Slieve Gullion Mountain 3 ½ times and didn’t even know it!!!!

We decided to continue the measuring to each classroom to find out how much you all travel of Slieve Gullion a week. Miss O’Neill and Mrs Marner decided to do some research on what type of exercise we are doing by going to class and travelling this distance.

They found out that the exercise we are doing is called ‘cardiovascular’. So what organs does this help? This type of exercise helps both our hearts and our lungs. It makes our hearts stronger helping it pump the blood round our bodies better and it helps our lungs with our breathing. So girls, by going to class we are climbing up lots of steps. To ours it is 56 steps. You all should count how many steps you are climbing. Because by climbing these steps, we are completing more than the recommended exercise for our age and helping ourselves stay "REALLY " healthy.

So, look at how great our Victorian school really is! No other school, and definitely not modern schools, would allow us to climb as much of Slieve Gullion in 1 week!

When we got our results and calculated how much of Slieve Gullion we travelled in one week we also decided to do this same calculation for each of the classes too. So we made an information sheet for every class to stick on their class door telling them exactly how much of Slieve Gullion they travel in a week.

We enjoyed this project very much and we hope pupils, staff and parents find it interesting