This article is from page 34 of the 2007-05-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 34 JPG
SURFING and orienteering have be- come firm favourites among the stu- dents of the Ennistymon Vocational School who have this year been of- fered the chance of doing both as part of their school curriculum.
Last Thursday saw the last group of students from the school finish their surfing course with the Lahinch Surf NY storey
The groundbreaking programme, which received a grant aid from the Clare Sports Partnership, is designed to encourage non-traditional sport- ing activities in the school.
“We ran two periods of six weeks of surfing where we organised les- sons through the Lahinch Surf School. As a result of that, we had 26 students who did surfing on Thurs- day from all the different classes and right through the years,” said school principal, Enda Byrt.
“We had an awards night during the week and a lot of the parents were coming up to us and saying that we had cost them money because their children were taking up surfing. That shows the interest in it and how it was successful.”
Alongside surfing, orienteering has proved very popular among the stu-
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“It’s about introducing people into something new. The second element of this was the orienteering.
“We got the Falls Hotel grounds professionally mapped so we have our Own orienteering area here,’ con- tinued Enda.
“We competed in Munster this year, ran orienteering throughout the year at different stages and we sent a team to the All-Ireland and we had a young first year who came eleventh.”
The idea of offering non-traditional sports and activities is to encourage people who have interests and skills besides the traditional team sports
like football, hurling and soccer.
“We have the wonderful resource here at Lahinch which is turning into a surfers’ paradise. We have our map of the Falls Hotel which is also a great resource.
“They are established and popular now so we would definitely like to continue them on,” said Enda.
“If there was a student who had a particular interest or expertise in an- other activity, then we could have a look at that also.
‘But it would be on the basis of the philosophy that it is something that they can keep on in later life for a while.”