By Sophie Talbot, 6th Class
Mr. McShane, who teaches Sixth class this year, took up teaching basketball to the fifth class last year when he was teaching them. Mr. Shepperd was the other basketball coach. This year they very generously agreed to teach Fifth again.
They coached them over a five week period. They took turns taking them out every Tuesday afternoon doing drills and matches. They started off by doing simple drills like shooting and dribbling. Then, they moved on to teaching them how to pivot and playing half court matches.
3 weeks ago Mr.McShane and Mr.Sheppard, stopped training them every Tuesday. Instead they set up lunchtime matches. They made 3 girls teams with 4 players on each team and 4 boys teams with 5 players on each team. Every time he and Mr.Sheppard were on yard duty, they chose different teams to play against each other and they have all been competing to get to the final.
The two best teams out of the girls teams will compete against each other and the two best teams of the boys will compete against each other. The final takes place in the school hall. They will wear the school basketball jerseys. All of the senior end of the school will be there to spectate along with Ms. Lawless. To make it really special, there is entrance music and photos taken at the end.
I have interviewed a few of the students who were part of this last year. Matthew Woods who was on the winning team last year said, “ It was really good winning with my friends. I was kind of nervous but I focused on defending and made lots of tackles.”
I have interviewed some of the fifth class to see how they felt about it. Reece in Fifth Class B said “I enjoyed playing basketball and it was good craic.” Cushla in his class said that she thinks she has gotten a lot better at basketball since the training. Elisa in 5th class B said “I would do the training again because it was very good.” Cian, who is also in their class, said that his favorite part of the training was learning new techniques, like how to pivot. All of them stated that they think Mr.McShane was the best coach and he was their favourite.
