Schools Sport

Every child in our care enjoys the opportunity to fully participate in a wide range of sporting and physical activities.  Weekly, the children enjoy Physical Education lessons taught to a high standard.  Great emphasis is placed on educating the children from the ground up with each child participating in 3 Fundamental Movement sessions daily.  These skills are further complemented through the regular use of our custom built Occupational Therapy Playground.  We’re very conscious that these skills will serve children well throughout their lifetimes and for these reasons we organise workshops in Skipping, Gymnastics, Hip-Hop and Zumba.  Beginning in May of this year, all classes will participate in a new and exciting Fundamental Movement Programme. The school was especially selected to take part in this Pilot Programme.  It aims to teach the children fundamental movements using three overarching categories: locomotor, non-locomotor and manipulative. This will be of huge benefit to the children throughout their lives.

Each class engages daily in an initiative called the “Daily Mile” where our 200m runway at the rear of the school comes into its own.  This builds their fitness and resilience and prepares them for our “Fanahan McSweeney Around the Grounds Running Challenge”.   The children take part in GAA coaching in both Hurling and Football year on year.  They frequently complete Rugby sessions in conjunction with Munster IRFU and Mallow RFC.  

For children who do not enjoy contact team sports as much, we organise annual Table Tennis coaching sessions with the Irish National Coach for Youths.  They enjoy activities such as Zumba for while we will hold H.I.T. (High Intensity Training) Training for the 5th and 6th class.  Ever since normal life has resumed after the Covid 19 pandemic, all children at the school have participated in Aquatics Lessons at Mallow Swimming Pool. 

The school enjoys an excellent relationship with the local GAA Club and each child is coached to a high standard by qualified coaches.  The children from 2nd – 6th class participate in all Sciath na Scol Competitions and blitzes.  The girls enjoyed great success in 2019 when winning the girls Sciath na Scol Football Final for the first time in the school’s history.

They also enjoyed success at the St. Colman’s and Loreto Blitz while the 4th Class Boys won the Shield Final of the Indoor Hurling County Finals in 2020. In 2023, the boys reached the final of the Sciath na Scol Football final and were only narrowly beaten by a strong Analeentha NS Team. 

All of the children use the astro turf in the village on a regular basis. This wonderful facility has been particularly beneficial during the colder months. Castletownroche N.S. received a shared Sports Capital Grant. The €8,000 grant was spent on a significant purchase of sports equipment that has made us the envy of North Cork! 

Every year we undertake ‘Bike Week’ which the children love. We recently took part in a Cycling Ireland Initiative which was a huge success.  This taught the children all about the skills of cycling their bicycles safely while they got a much better appreciation of cycling safely on our roads.  Children from every class made an effort to cycle to school and take part in bicycle activities. We had a high of 75 pupils cycling to school from a total of 85. We look forward to participating in Bike Week in May of this year again.