Gaelic Time

Gaelic Time lessons are designed to provide children with a positive image of GAA through many opportunities to have fun, engage with others and experience success.

Gaelic Time is an initiative that supports primary school teachers in delivering Gaelic Games through structured coaching resources.

Gaelic Time, a new initiative available to primary schools designed to support teachers by providing ready-to-use, fun and inclusive lesson plans, activity ideas and demonstration videos, will revolutionise how young children are introduced to Gaelic games.

Developed in collaboration with wellbeing curriculum experts, school principals and teachers, the programme is fully aligned with the Primary School Wellbeing Curriculum.

Gaelic Time features ten engaging programmes that introduce children to our national games and support their wider personal development through initiatives such as Playground Leaders and Réiteoir Óg, helping to build leadership, confidence, teamwork and communication skills.

“For us, Gaelic Time is really, really important,” says the GAA’s Director of Coaching and Games Development, Shane Flanagan.

“We recently did a study around coaching Gaelic games in primary schools where we engaged with primary school teachers

"The vast, vast majority are female and they highlighted the need for practical resources to help them coach Gaelic games which was a catalyst for Gaelic Time.

“A big part of Aontas, our current GAA strategy plan, is to promote self-sufficiency and sustainability and we feel that this programme allows us to achieve that in so far as it provides training and support to teachers so they can deliver coaching themselves.

“It really is a one-stop shop in terms of helping teachers know what they should be doing with their class. We're lucky with the happy coincidence that the new Wellbeing in Primary School curriculum is just coming out as well and we've done terrific work in terms of aligning Gaelic Time to it.

“We feel that from a teacher's perspective it will help with delivery of the curriculum and from our perspective we hope that it will help us further embed our footprint within the primary schools.

“We have games that we need to improve our penetration and traction a bit in terms of GAA Rounders, GAA Handball and even hurling and camogie and we feel this is an opportunity to really embed those games in a meaningful way in schools where they are maybe not taking place at the moment.

“I think this is something that will be unrivalled in terms of what can be offered. And I think for an organisation like ourselves it really, really aligns with our values around community, leadership and teamwork as well. Gaelic Time is a huge step forward.”