St. John's Eglish PSG - Back Into Action!

Aim

To promote and increase participation in a wide variety of sports after school hours.

Who are we?

St. John's Eglish (1) Parent Support Group (PSG) are a voluntary organisation looking to help and support the education and well-being of all pupils at our local primary school.

St. John's Eglish is a small, rural school set in the beautiful orchard county. We as a school are very lucky to have such diligent and dedicated staff who wish only to provide the best education for our pupils. The small school simply consists of 4 classrooms, a dining hall/canteen, school office and staffroom. The lack of facilitates along with the schools rural setting does severely limit opportunities in terms of curricular and extra curricular activities. The schools proximity to the local sports club provides the majority of opportunities for Physical Education and School Sport (PESS). Through this project we want to increase the pupils participation in sports and provide the school with much needed new sports equipment. 

Why are we crowdfunding?

We want to provide all children from Primary 1 to Primary 7 with opportunities to take part in multisport coaching sessions after school. To meet our project aims we must provide specialist coaches and updated sports equipment for the benefit of all the pupils. 

Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on all our children. Prolonged inactivity and social isolation has left children with lasting negative repercussions. Parents and teachers have noted that during and in the aftermath of Covid, children are spending more time on electronic devices and as a result have become less active. We want to promote and encourage participation in sport to build up and surpass activity levels pre-Covid. We know that physical activity through sport can have an extremely positive impact on children's wellbeing, both physically and mentally. 

The aftermath of Covid, coupled with the cost of living crisis and further limitations on school budgets has meant that it has become increasingly difficult for schools to secure the required funding for specialist coaches or even to purchase new equipment. In addition to this, expensive transportation costs to and from St. John's remote location severely impacts extra curricular activities the school can provide throughout the year. Given the rural location of our catchment area, it is also difficult for parents to find affordable, local sports activities outside of school. 

We want to increase participation for all children in a variety of sports and to improve their mental health and social skills. Both of which were greatly impacted during the Covid-19 pandemic. We want all children to learn and/or develop a new skills/sports. We want all children to socialise again and have fun. We want to develop their resilience, build confidence and have a sense of belonging in a safe and familiar environment. We want to make sport inclusive and accessible to all the pupils in St. Johns. We want every child to have access to a sport that they enjoy. We want to build healthy, positive attitudes towards sports from a young age. We want to bring positive, life-long healthy habits and to promote the fantastic benefits of participation in sports to all children at St. John's. These aims can be set in motion and achieved with our St. John's Eglish PSG - Back Into Action project. 

How will we spend the money raised?

Through our fundraising campaign with Crowdfunder and the additional funding available with SportNI we want to provide coaching opportunities for our pupils to take part in trialling various different sports after school.  We want to utilise specialist sports coaches to deliver after school clubs for all the children in the school.

The specialist coaches will also provide further opportunities to upskill school staff, which will positively impact the PESS programme long term. The afterschool programme which will be fully funded will run at the end of the school day, for example Primary 1 - 3 from 2.15 - 3.15 and Primary 4 - 7 from 3.15 - 4.15.

To support the specialist coaches in their sessions we also want to buy much needed sports equipment to complement the wide range of sports we wish to offer. Sports which our children may not have had a chance to try out will be the priority: basketball, netball, soccer, golf and athletics. Again the addition of the sports equipment will positively impact the PESS programme in the school long term.

Having engaged with the pupils of St. John's Eglish, it is clear that they are much in favour of the project and would like to see sports such as: gymnastics, basketball, soccer, Gaelic games, golf and dance incorporated into after school activities. 

The equipment that we would like to purchase consists of but is not limited to:

2x Bluetooth Speaker and PA system
90+ hours of multisport and specialised coaching
Cones/Bibs/Pump/Space Markers/Whistles
100x GoGames footballs
10x Gaelic Trainers
30x Tuff Skin Balls
Multisport Goalposts - 12x6
Multisport Goalposts - 10x4
2x Sureshot Pro Portable Basketball Hoop
20x Basketballs
Trigolf starter kit
20x size 4 Soccer balls
2x Sureshot Transportable Netball
15x Netballs
20x Rugby Balls
3x Balance Beams

Contributing

We thank all of our supporters in advance for their support. We urge our pupils, parents and community to contribute to our project. Lets get St John's...

BACK INTO ACTION!

This project successfully funded on 20th March 2023