Physical Education
An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body.
General George S. Patton
Intent
At Christ Church CE Primary School, we believe that Physical Education is essential to ensuring that our children develop a happy and healthy lifestyle. As a progressive and skills based curriculum, our emphasis upon building upon prior knowledge and vocabulary helps reduce the cognitive load for the children. This allows us to create a firm foundation for children to improve their personal best, though growth mindset, and to compete against their peers and other schools.
We strive to create and celebrate aspirations by ensuring that we widen the opportunities we provide for our children through close links with local clubs and involvement with enrichment events and festivals. These close links and enhanced opportunities allow us to nurture talents at a personal, local and national level. At Christ Church we value the importance of team work to achieve positive outcomes in both competition and self-improvement, developing resilience and self-esteem.
Threshold Topics are key to our curriculum and we strive to link together common concepts that run between subjects and through the curriculum. Giving our children the opportunity to access and practice these concepts across all areas of the curriculum, will help pupils to assimilate new information into growing schemas.
The enhanced curriculum that is offered at Christ Church allows pupils the opportunities above that of the National Curriculum. We are fortunate to access high level provision and support from Birkenhead Gymnastics and ensure children have access to inter year and inter school competitions.
Implementation
In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in Physical Education, we implement a progressive and skills-based curriculum throughout the whole school. We ensure that our weekly, quality first, PE lessons support a broad and balanced curriculum providing variety and a high level of engagement for all pupils. As well as teaching PE as a discrete subject; we aim to provide opportunities for children to remain physically active through active lunchtimes, daily mile sessions and a wide range of after school and lunchtime clubs. By teaching Physical Education alongside promoting physical activity, we provide children with the opportunities to develop specific skills and the physical fitness and physical competency to allow them to become and remain active throughout their life.
As a school, we believe that all children are capable of achieving high standards in Physical Education. PE is carefully planned, structured and sequenced to ensure progression across each sport or activity and across each year group. Teachers throughout school reinforce this to ensure that as a school we actively promote a healthy active lifestyle.
Our whole school approach to the teaching and learning of Physical Education involves the following:
- PE will be taught using planning, adapted for the class by the class teacher, from Complete PE. This provides children with a clear and structured curriculum focused on acquiring specific skills of physical competency whist supporting developing their understanding of rules, tactics and team work.
- Planning and lessons include opportunities for children to achieve their own personal best, set targets and work towards personal goals. The teacher use the ‘Personal Best’ elements of Complete along with The Power of Yet to promote the not only the schools Vision and Values but also British Values and sportsmanship.
- PE lessons are engaging and challenging to promote an enjoyment of physical activity and a competence at school sport. Throughout their lessons the children develop skills across the three core strands (motor competence, rules, strategies and tactics and healthy participation) and involve high-quality resources, equipment and specialised coaching.
- From Foundation to Year 6 PE is progressive and builds on the learning and skill development of the previous years.
- A healthy diet and an active lifestyle is embedded into the teaching and learning of PE and other curriculum subjects each year, from Foundation to Year 6, to ensure that children recognise and value the importance of keeping their body and mind healthy and active.
- We actively encourage our Key Stage 2 Sports leaders organise a range of playground challenges to promote physical activity at lunchtimes and personal and intra school competition for all year groups.
- As we develop our Physical Education and Personal, Social and Emotional skills through our weekly PE lessons, we aim to engage in more inter school competitions as we work closely with ‘Your School Games’ to retain our Silver Schools Sports Mark.
- In addition, we work very closely with a range of local clubs to provide opportunities and develop skills that our pupils may not otherwise have access to. This is supported by a wide range of after school clubs both to develop the skills needed to succeed in competitions and to provide enjoyable active hobbies for our children
We want every child to experience the joy and the physical and mental health benefits of living a healthy and active lifestyle, whether that be through a school-based activity, recreational hobby or competitive sport. We work with parents to prompt a healthy active lifestyle and strive to ensure that Physical education nurtures talent and widens our pupils’ horizons.
Impact
Children leave school having a love of sport and physical activity both in and out of school, with this continuing into later life. Children will have worked on their own aspirations in relation to PE and this will be carried on after leaving KS2, with children continuing to participate for enjoyment or competitively. All children should be able to discuss the importance of a healthy lifestyle and how this is achieved as well as developed skills that underpin life such as teamwork, sportsmanship, self-motivation, resilience and independence.
Assessment is through observations and informal evaluations against specific National Curriculum objectives during lessons. Staff across school use INSIGHT on a termly basis to assess statements pupils are working towards, secure in, exceeding or mastery. At the end of the academic year, each pupil will be given a corresponding level appropriate to their understanding that reflects attainment for the academic year.
Pupil voice is used periodically throughout the year to ascertain enthusiasm and knowledge of PE across school, the understanding of taught concepts and pupils’ ability to talk about the different aspects of PE. The introduction of the Junior Leadership Team this year has really given an extra dimension to subject leaders. They support leaders in monitoring and improving subject areas through the curriculum.
By the end of key stage 2, pupils will be able to:
- Take responsibility for their own health and fitness and many also enjoying the success of competitive sports
- Be inspired to have a love of sport and to grow up to have happy and healthy lives; utilising the skills and knowledge they have acquired through PE
- Become stewards of their own learning (both in and out of the classroom) and supporting their peers to develop and excel in sport and across the curriculum
- Show a willingness and ability to try new sports and activities, push themselves and persevere in light of new challenges
- Develop their fundamental knowledge, understanding, skills and techniques and apply these to a wide variety of different sports and activities.
- Become confident within the different strands of PE and show resilience when tackling new skills
- Participate in and seek out additional extracurricular activities both school and external to school related
Additional Information and Resources
Please click on the links below to find out more about our Physical Education Curriculum:
National Curriculum Programme of Study: Physical EducationPhysical Education Long Term PlanPhysical Education Knowledge Progression Document
Physical Education Vocabulary Progression Document
Physical Education and Development Matters