Balbriggan CC and Balbriggan Educate Together National School Inaugural Cricket Day
Teaching is a wonderful profession. Every new day brings joy, enthusiasm and excitement. Being a teacher allows you to guide, support and nurture young learners while helping them to recognize and avail of all the opportunities that life bowls up.
A huge part of my philosophy as a teacher is to help to foster in all children a sense of community. An understanding of their value to the school community, the local community and society as a whole.
At Balbriggan Educate Together National School we try our best to nurture active citizens, people who will add value to the communities they settle in and who will relish opportunities to bring people together.
There are many ways to teach this message of inclusion and community involvement. Opportunities arise during our flagship events such as Human Rights Month and Community Week. Our annual Get Active Week is another vehicle to develop community links with the clubs and organisations in our area who are responsible for development of sport and wellbeing.
Over the past four years Balbriggan Educate Together National School has forged a really strong relationship with Balbriggan Cricket Club and this flourishing union has had amazing benefits to both parties. Junior membership numbers have soared and parental involvement has increased. Balbriggan Cricket Club have never had as many junior teams and the future is looking bright.
On Monday the 20th of June, we brought over 200 children to Jack Harper Memorial Park for our first ever Cricket Day. Excitement levels were through the roof as the children from our 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes made their way to their local club.
A number of them had been there before, some of whom had just begun their cricket careers earlier in the season. There was almost a disbelief that each class were getting to spend the whole day with cricket experts and getting the chance to use the amazing facilities on offer at Balbriggan Cricket Club.
The children at our school were already familiar with Balbriggan Cricket Club Head Coach Muhammad Farrukh (Fez), Derek Rooney and James Warsop who have been coaching and developing cricket with them at different times over the past couple of years.
However, meeting up-and-coming Balbriggan youth cricketer Cian Nulty and the excellent South African Exchange Student Jaco Lange who is playing with Balbriggan this year on an Cricket Leinster Exchange Programme with his school in Pretoria, Menlo Park was a real bonus.
Children are inspired by their peers, and Cian and Jaco allowed those with a real interest in cricket to see up close what can be achieved with dedication to their sport, and to dream about emulating their achievements on the cricket field. Jaco and Cian are just fifteen years of age.
The teaching staff who accompanied the children were bowled over by the warm, sincere and welcoming atmosphere down at the club. They were simply amazed that cricket was so accessible to males and females of all ages and that this amazing facility was right on their doorstep.
On Wednesday 29th the teachers will join with members of the parent community to play an exhibition match against a Balbriggan CC XI. This promises to be a great night and a further opportunity to strengthen the links between our two institutions.
It has been another excellent year for cricket at our school. We had a very good run in Leinster’s Leprechaun Cup before coming up against last year’s winners Oliver Plunkett’s from Malahide.
James Hayden – Balbriggan Educate Together NS.