A variety of trips throughout the year - Science Centre / Whitelees Windfarm / Dumfries House / Museum of Rural Life - Farm Trip / Vikingar / Educational Science shows to visit the school - Sense.

Dependent on which stage goes there are approximately 60 kids and 1/2 buses needed for each trip.  Just now we are over £250 for a bus and per head for most of these trips it is 4/5 pounds so it is approximately £500 a trip per school year stage.  So any contribution for buses and activities would be amazing. 

The funds would allow the school to pay for the sports coaches expenses to run 2 sessions per week for the next three school terms. These sessions would begin in October and run from 3pm – 4pm. 

We wish to continue with the success of the football afterschool club for girls and boys from Primary 5-7, this club would run for the rest of the academic year.  The funds would allow us to pay for transport to take the football team to upcoming tournaments which are organised by North Ayrshire Council Active Schools. We would add to our exsiting sports kit to allow the children to be identified and part of the team. 

We would use some of the fund to pay a netball coach to establish a netball after school club.  Following consultation with the pupils from St. Palladius’ Primary this was a sport that the children showed a high level of interest in.  Netball tournaments are organised by north Ayrshire council and the funds would enable us to pay for buses in order for the children to attend.  

Following the success of the Dance Club last session, the children are very keen to continue this.  The children took part in the Day of Dance last year and we woud love to provide this opportunity again. 

The school have Young Sports Leaders who have responsibility for promoting physical activity in the playground.  The children undertook training in playground games and have requested playground equipment in order to fully engage all the children in the school.  The fund would be used to purchase this equipment. The children will work closely with North Ayrshire’s Active Schools Coordinator to successfully deliver their lunchtime club, which will run each day for the rest of the academic year.

Physical and mental health and wellbeing is always at the heart of St. Palladius’ agenda.  Afterschool sports clubs are an excellent way to engage children in physical activity and improve their health and mental well-being.  Exposing children to sports and physical activity in an afterschool environment encourages them to explore the sport in the community and strengthens the pathways into the sport.  It is hoped that that the afterschool club will encourage more children to participate in sport and thus increase their physical fitness.  Due to the cost of living crisis, after school clubs are the only opportunity that some children have to participate in sports. 

Through this fund we wish to improve aspects of fitness, and develop personal and interpersonal skills and attributes.  We want to enable learners to develop the concepts and skills necessary for participation in a wide range of physical activity, sport and outdoor learning and enhance their physical wellbeing in preparation for leading a fulfilling, active and healthy lifestyle.

The school’s Young Sports Leaders (Primary 6 and 7 pupils) are involved in this application through providing their opinion on the after school clubs they wish to have established. The have selected the equipment needed for their lunchtime ‘Playground Games’ club. 

Sports equipment - £300

School sports kit - £200

Coaches' expenses - £200

Buses to sporting events - £300

TOTAL - £1000

Strips £450

Zip tops £200

Meals subsidised for the 3 days £324 (£6 per day per boy )

Following discussion with the children they would like to promote their health and well-being and encourage outdoor play. They would like to build better relationships with their peers through team building exercises and find that through outdoor play this could be achieved.

The children also love a school disco. The PTA always thrive to make these a free event that children can attend to meet their friends outwith school. A free snack and drink is always provided.

Below are details of how the grant would be spent:

Football nets x 2 - £325

Footballs x 10 - £125

Outdoor equipment such as skipping ropes, basket ball nets, bats and balls, hop scotch, ankle slippers, chalk, frisbees etc - £400

School discos - £150

We would like to have a free bite to eat during each group as this is something that we are often asking for. The Legacy Centre currently runs a group on a sunday “Food chat and chill” which is one of our most popular groups and provides young people with a free hot meal. This has shown us that other young people as well as ourselves benefit from a free meal and snack while we are at the youth group during the week. We would like there to be a choice of tuckshop sweets for young people to choose one per night and a range of juice for young people to access. We would also like to stock a range of noodles for young people to have when they are visiting. 

£250 - tuckshop snacks 

£250 - juice 

£500 - noodles 

Outdoor metal storage shed - L-2.6 X H- 2.1 x W- 1.54 

This is a medium outdoor container at the cost of £1700.

Funds from the summer fayre will be used to make up the difference from our parent council contribution. 

This additional storage would allow us to fund further outdoor resources that children across all of our year groups can enjoy during a host of activities with their teachers. At the moment, although we have purchased outdoor engagement material they are in a near-by locker as the school simply does not have the capacity to store the additional equipment, therefore access is limited.

We have watched children thrive as they engage in an array of learning outdoors. Research has proven the link between positive mental health and the outdoors in both adults and children, it is not biased to age, sex, race or ethnicity therefore anyone is free to enjoy it, and as it lends itself so perfectly to team-building activities the children, following limited social engagement have learned, or re-learned how to interact and socialise with eachother through such activities. This was crucially important to the children who have recently left to begin their next phase of learning at secondary school. The pupils within Lawthorn follow our scottish governments curriculum for excellence which aims to provide our children with the knowledge and skills to thrive in the world we live in. The children have spoken so positively about any outdoor endeavours that they get access to, learning about the importance of being both physically well and mentally well to not only achieve their physical growth milestones but their academic ones also.