St. Bernadette’s Senior School always enters a team in the local Cross Country Running Finals each year.
St. Bernadette’s S.N.S. takes part every year in a series of Cross Country Events for primary schools organised by South Dublin County Council Sports Office. 52 schools are participating, with around 600 children at each of the events.
50 children take part in races against a large number of other schools. The children put in some fantastic performances and are always a credit to our school. The programme ends with a finals day in mid – May in Corkagh Park. Well done to all who took part.
South Dublin County Council holds an Annual Primary Schools Cross Country Finals. Over 2,000 children, between the ages of 9-12 years, participate monthly in their local park, representing their school. The event is targeted at students in 3rd-6th classes across the county.
These children have been participating in the local park, in all kinds of weather, close to their school during the months of February, March and April in venues across Clondalkin, Lucan, Tallaght. After months of training all 49 primary schools are brought together to compete at the one venue for finals day in May…that’s 2,102 children out in our regional park.
The event is about collecting points for your school- so the top 10 children in each race have their points recorded. The event is about fun and participation and each school has been able to send up to 50 children per event. The success of the programme is due to the short yet challenging distances of cross country running; 3rd class run 300m / 4th class run 400m / 5th class run 500m and 6th class run 600m.
The schools have really bought into this programme as a means of increasing children physical activity levels, but also they have reported that attendance at school has increased for some children participating on the programme, and attention levels in class have also improved. The spin off of the event is that children are out at 8:30am before school running around their car park, football pitch or any open space they can find. Although the school can only send 50 children to our event each month there are over 200 children running in some schools each day.
The Primary Schools Cross Country Finals are held in Corkagh Park, Clondalkin (just off Newlands Cross) each year in mid- May from 10am – 1.30pm.
