BALLYMACWARD Primary School have held their annual and popular GAA Day. The day began with a special and busy assembly with special guests being St John's star Conal Morgan, St Gall's Antoin McCaffrey and Mark Munce of Gaelfast.
The assembly commenced with Principal Mr Kennedy revealing the new school jerseys generously sponsored by RadsNI Radiator Suppliers.
New Ballymacward school jersey's sponsored by RadsNI
St John's star Conal Morgan brought along the Volunteer Cup – which the club won this year – to the event to show the young generation the Senior Hurling title in Antrim.
Antoin McCaffrey, Paul Buchanan, Conal Morgan and Mark Munce pictured with the volunteer cup
Mr Buchanan presented a short presentation on the history of the Volunteer Cup and conducted a Q&A session alongside Conal with excellent questions from the pupils before a photoshoot with all the classes and the Volunteer Cup.
Antoin McCaffrey reads his new GAA Themed book
The Assembly finished with a few hurling challenges among the guests and Principal Mr Kennedy proved the adage that class is always permanent.
After the assembly Antoin McCaffrey read excerpts to the classes of his recently released GAA novel 'Magic Gloves' and pupils really enjoyed meeting and questioning Antoin about his exciting book.
In class pupils enjoyed the collapsed curriculum and keenly participated in the array of GAA orientated activities such as comprehension on the history of the GAA, acrostic poetry on Gaelic Football, numeracy task on GAA stadium capacities, designing own GAA kit and creating profiles on current GAA stars.
Pupils and staff also enjoyed the challenge of Spot the Teacher Quiz in trying to identify Mr Buchanan and Mr Kennedy from their GAA playing careers of yesteryear.
All classes enthusiastically enjoyed the quality coaching sessions throughout the day as they took the reigns of the FUNdamentals (Primary 1 and Pebbles) class alongside some hurling, camogie and football sessions which were conducted by Mark Munce from Gaelfast, Lamh Dhearg’s Kieran Megraw, Marty Caroline Tracey along with Mr Buchanan.
In all, a very active, educational and enjoyable day for the pupils focusing on the national sport.
