Dear PEAI Member,

Tá súil againn gur bhain sibh go léir taitneamh as an mbriseadh lár téarma an tseachtain seo caite. We hope this email finds you well after the mid-term break last week. We are sending out this email to our members with updates about webinars that the PEAI have recorded and recently released on the topics of teaching sport psychology and teaching resistance exercise in Physical Education. We also have a brief recap of our 2025 Conference and an introduction our our Executive for 2025/26. We will be providing much more extensive updates and news in our 2025 Winter Newsletter next month.

AGM & Conference 2025

We had a fantastic weekend for our AGM and Conference in Limerick last month. We would like to thank the staff at the Castletroy Park and the University of Limerick for going above and beyond to help the weekend run so smoothly for us. We had over 30 workshops take place on CBAs, PAs, PAPs, gymnastics, martial arts, curriculum models, digital technology, adventure education…. and much, much more! Our members had an opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues after our AGM with live music and finger food. Across the weekend we had various panel discussions and keynote speakers which gave us all food for thought for our practices as PE professionals. Our exhibitors also kindly provided super spot prizes to leave some of our members going home with more than the PEAI Conference Goodie Bag. We would like to sincerely thank all those who attended across the weekend. It really is the highlight of the PE calendar in Ireland, and it is this annual coming together that gives us all inspiration and a boost of energy for the academic year ahead. Ní neart go cur le chéile! Keep an eye on our social channels in the coming months for news on our next location for the 2026 PEAI Conference.

PEAI Member Resources & Webinars

A reminder that a full suite of resources across junior and senior cycle PE, including all workshop material from PEAI Conferences in recent years, are available via the members section on our website, www.peai.org. A short guidance video on how to access these is available here. Since the summer, the PEAI has recorded and released two webinars for our members. PEAI Executive member John Murphy and Emma Saunders of SETU Waterford delivered an excellent Sport Psychology webinar, and last week we uploaded a webinar on teaching resistance exercise from PEAI Executive member John Murphy and Past-President Brendan O’Keeffe of the University of Limerick. Whether you are a PE teacher, coach, or student, these webinars offer ready-to-use examples, reflection tasks, and resources to help make these topics relatable and applicable. They can be accessed on our YouTube channel or directly on our website under the ‘Webinars’ tab.

Charity Registration

In our September updates email to members, we informed our members that we had successfully completed phase one and phase two of the registration process in collaboration with the Charity Regulator. One of the final steps in being granted Charity Status was completed at our AGM last month on October 10th when the motion was carried to adopt our revised PEAI Constitution and Articles of Association as advised by the Charity Regulator. We will update our members as soon as the Charity Regulator completes our registration.

PEAI Executive 2025/26

As we thanked and recognised the invaluable time and service given by the outgoing PEAI Executive of 2024/25 at our AGM, we welcomed on board our incoming Executive for 2025/26, who have a busy year planned in order to support our members. We said a big thank you to outgoing president Brendan O’Keeffe, past-president and long-standing executive committee member Garrett Coyle, outgoing secretary Gráinne Power, and finally Aoife O’Mahoney who we wish the best of luck on her travels around the world. Thank you all for the contributions you have made to our Association and to the wider PE community.

With that, we welcomed on board 4 newly elected Executive Committee members; Deirbhile Ryan (Mungret Community College), Hilary Fitzgerald (FCJ Bunclody), Laura Kavanagh (Coláiste Chill Mhantáin) and Mike Storey (Oide). As well as these super new additions, some of our existing committee members have undertaken new officer roles. We are excited for the year ahead, supporting our members through this period of curriculum updates. Our Executive already met online just before the midterm break to set out some initial plans for the year, and we will be meeting in-person at the start of next month when we start putting together plans for our 2026 Conference, as well as finalising outputs to support our members during the 2025/26 academic year.

PEAI Executive 2025/26
President: Alan Finnegan
Vice-President: Gráinne Phelan
Secretary: Katie McAuliffe
Treasurer: John Murphy
Assistant Treasurer: Peter Keaney
Deirbhile Ryan
Hilary Fitzgerald
Laura Kavanagh
Mike Storey
Molly Nightingale

Le gach dea-ghuí,
Physical Education Association of Ireland

_________________
President: Alan Finnegan
Vice President: Gráinne Phelan