Physical Education
Intent
We recognise and value the importance of physical education, not just for the time children are in school, but for the rest of their lives. We aim to have a high-quality physical education curriculum that inspires all children to succeed and excel in physical fitness. We do this through adhering to the national curriculum aims as a minimum expectation to ensure that all pupils:
- develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
- are physically active for sustained periods of time
- engage in competitive sports and activities
- lead healthy, active lives
It is our intention to build a curriculum that enables children to develop knowledge, skills and vocabulary in a broad range of sporting activities, as well as developing values and transferrable life skills such as tolerance, fairness and respect. Through enrichment activities and intra-school competitions, utilising the whole of the school grounds, we aim to raise the profile of PE and expose our children to sports they may never have had the opportunity to engage with. Our PE syllabus is based on an enhanced model of the Early Years Framework and the National Curriculum with a clear progression structure from EYFS to Year 6. Additionally, an imperative element of the curriculum shows a need for healthy lifestyles, a balanced diet, positive growth mind-set and the resilience to persevere. We are passionate about the need to teach children how to co-operate and collaborate with others, working as part of a team, understanding fairness and equity of play to embed life-long values
Implementation
Teachers use Primary PE Passport, an online resource that provides a full breadth of coverage and builds up PE skills and knowledge sequentially within each year and across the school. Our PE curriculum is broad, balanced, engaging, and interactive.
Working in partnership with our local sports partnership, we deploy a PE Specialist to work once a week in school, to deliver high-quality PE sessions. Working alongside ECTs and other staff, he provides ongoing professional development, and raises the profile of PE in school. In addition, a Lunchtime Sports Lead is deployed to engage children to be physically active throughout lunchtime, and specifically targets the least active children to engage in fun activities. The strong links with PSHE, DT and Science, we teach children the importance of living healthy lifestyles, eating a balanced diet, improving our physical fitness, and promoting good mental wellbeing.
SMSC permeates throughout our curriculum and in particular through PE, we teach children:
- about performing a sequence in gymnastics, which allows the pupils to express their feelings and emotions as well as be amazed by what their bodies can achieve. This happens within our PE department through a well-balanced PE curriculum where pupils are able to explore many activities and also take on many different roles within sport such as leader or coach.
- the advantages of health and lifestyle through team sports and health related fitness. Children are also able to understand the rules of activities and the reasons why they need to abide by them and understand what fair play is. Our children are challenged to increase their personal level of fitness and to understand the benefits of this. They are also taught about the importance of being healthy and active. In lessons, children are taught age-appropriate rules, fairness and respect and are taught to abide by these rules. This is linked to the community we live in and the rules which each citizen must live by.
- To take on the role of a coach or leader to develop their social skills in co-operation, communication, commitment, loyalty, and teamwork. We provide a varied and balanced curriculum, which gives pupils the opportunity to work together as a team and work on communication and leadership skills. Children are challenged to give 100% during PE lessons and there is a strong ethos of encouraging others during lessons.
- Give children the opportunity to learn many sports which originated from this country and others. Children are given many opportunities to compete against other schools in a variety of sports. This can often mean that our children are absorbing themselves into different cultures and learning respect for these cultures
Inclusion within our curriculum is paramount as we teach our children about diversity (not just disability) as an opportunity for learning about how everyone can become physically active and healthy.
At the end of each unit, children’s learning is assessed against the outcomes for the unit. Each child is awarded bronze, silver or gold which demonstrates their attainment for that unit.
We provide a range of after school clubs develop our children’s PE abilities such as, football, badminton, running, fitness. In addition, children take part in several sports competitions, including tennis, football, dodgeball, athletics and basketball. All children take part in the annual Sports Day. Furthermore, external professionals are invited to promote healthy living e.g. Scoot Fit, Bikeability and Walk to School Week.
Throughout the year, we run various events to promote physical fitness and engagement with all groups in school. This year, we have pledged to promote girl’s football. As a result, a whole day will be spent on football and ensuring girls in particular are taught how to play football and build their interests. Events such as the Euro Women’s Football in the summer will be another positive vehicle to promote girls’ football. We will also be taking UKS2 girls to watch Manchester United Women’s Football Team at Old Trafford.
Through these enriched engagement in physical activities in the curriculum and beyond, the school has been awarded the Silver Mark for Sports Games.
We have a trained group of UKS2 children who are the Sport Leaders within the school. They set up suitable challenges for the whole school to engage with, thus promoting physical fitness throughout the school day, such as taking part in the Daily Mile Challenge.
Impact
We ensure that our PE curriculum is progressive and allows children to develop fundamental skills and apply them to a variety of sports and activities, achieving their personal bests. All children are provided with the skills and given opportunities to demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best. Our pupils are physically active, and this has positive implications on their learning in the classroom. Children understand how to lead a healthy lifestyle and understand the importance of exercise. We hope children enjoy PE and develop a love of sport, and physical activity, that they pursue outside of school and in future life outside of primary school. All pupils understand the values and importance of fair play and being a good sportsperson. Year 6 pupils leave school with the skills to self-rescue in the water and swim 25 metres competently.
Pupil Voice
Feedback from pupils demonstrates that they enjoy all aspects of the PE curriculum and activities we enter outside of school hours too. However, they do prefer the more competitive side of the sports curriculum. Our children would also like to extend how much time they have for lessons.
Scoot Fit was extremely popular and well received by all pupils right from reception up to Year 6 so we will be investing in sets of scooters for year groups.
