Target reached!
With extra funding we would widen our sports programme next year and acquire more ou...
St Mary's Aughlisnafin - Healthy bodies and minds
Castlewellan, Newry, Mourne and Down, United Kingdom
Aim
The Friends Of The Fin are looking to raise funds to support develop sports through new equipment and fitness sessions from Bee Active NI.
Who are we?
The Friends Of The Fin are a charity PTA supporting a rural primary school, St Mary's, Aughlisnafin. We have previously helped with fundraising efforts to buy books and a complete set of interactive whiteboards for the school. We have hosted large events for the whole community and wish to further assist in developing the local area.
Why are we crowdfunding?
The school urgently requires sports equipment including new gaelic nets and other resources, to deliver a new programme of sports for pupils in the school and to diversify the experience of pupils by introducing new sporting skills. We feel this both help provide a broad and balanced curriculum and will also support the pupils emotionally, to celebrate their achievements and to promote health and fitness. The children and young people in our local community have been aversly affected in these areas by the pandemic and we feel by developing a sport and fitness programme it would help bring about a positive mental outlook for our young people and help with resilience skills. This sports programme would xpose pupils to a wide selection of new skills, experiences and trainers from different backgrounds.
Funding would also allow the Friends Of The Fin to organise a whole community sports day. The Bee Active coaching has been very beneficial for pupils physical and mental health and the Friends Of the Fin will work in collaboration to fundraise for the programme to progress. This would allow a non-competitive 'fun' eleement which has not previously been a focus and will also give the community a chance to come together and celebrate post pandemic. This would hopefully involve many different age groups and members of the local community.
How you can play your part
There are simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out! We are having a draw and extra prizes would be greatly appreciated.
How we’ll spend the money raised
Donated money will be spent on acquiring equipment to diversify learning by introducing new sports and experiences. It would allow access to new classes to receive the sports training that has been limited to certain classes.
We intend to
Acquire an 10 week 'Mental Health sports' programme from BeActive, to introduce pupils to new sports and skills, including golf, soccer, rugby and other skill sets which have not previously received focus in the school. This is to boost confidence and encourage health in a non-competitive environment. This programme would be of entirely new skills and sports and specially tailored to pupils of each year group.
Expand arrangements to sports day by adding a non competitive fun sports component overseen by BeeActive fitness. This would be a new element previously not focused in sports day actively which would allow whole school participation and emphasise the importance of taking part.
Training for staff in teaching and developing these skills, including inservice training, so that modelled lessons could be developed into a programme for positive mental health through sport.
Purchase new gaelic nets to allow classes who have previously not received gaelic training to get involved in lessons and age appropriate gaelic equipment for these early years pupils.
Equipment and resources to allow the teaching of new sports which had not received prior focus in school including hockey, football, netball, golf and basketball based resources. These will be new for reception to Primary 7 classes.
This funding would allow pupils to enter tournaments and exhibitions for these new sporting experiences, some of which they have never been previously exposed to before.
Community impact
The Friends Of The Fin are committed to supporting the wider community. The effect beyond the health and fitness of the young people supported will include the general mental health and civic pride of the wider community. The Friends Of The Fin events are open for the wider community to avail of and enjoy.
The area and school have a proud tradition of gaelic games and the funding would allow it to be introduced to new class (Reception to Primary 4) as well as building on the skill sets of the community with the introduction of a wider sports. This diversity would allow pupils to discover other areas where they could excel at and encourage an acceptance for diversity of skills, abilities and backgrounds.
Sport Northern Ireland Project Re-Boot: Activate has provided £5,000 of match funding
This project successfully funded on 1st May 2023