Our PE Curriculum
St. Paul’s C.E. Primary School
P.E. Curriculum Statement 2022-2023
INTENT
At St. Paul’s we have designed our P.E. curriculum to be fully inclusive and accessible for all children. We believe Physical Education develops children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing competence, creativity and confidence in a range of physical activities and sports.
Physical Education promotes an understanding in children of their bodies in action. It involves thinking, selecting and applying skills and promotes positive attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle. Thus we work to enable them to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives. It is essential at St. Paul’s that we provide children with as much experience as possible to prepare them for Secondary School P.E. and encourage any child with an interest in a particular sport to join local clubs to further their passion and development in that area.
In addition to this we want to offer every child a wide range of sporting experience and opportunities so that they are inspired to find their own passion in sport, as we believe every child has at least one sport they can enjoy and love to play throughout their life.
A key priority in P.E. lessons is children being active. Although there is an obvious emphasis on skill development and learning the essential skills to prepare them for Secondary School P.E. there is a bigger importance on them being active for longer in lessons. This comes as part of a whole school approach to help children be more active daily which includes walk to school schemes and the daily mile.
At St. Paul’s we hope to engrain the importance of daily exercise, functional movement patterns like walking, running, climbing, body weight management, jumping, throwing, stretching, keeping the body mobile and supple so that you can lead a healthy, active life for as long as possible. We hope that our children find a passion for activity and want to continue to study, take part and excel in that long after they leave St. Paul’s because of how much they enjoyed it and found in benefited them in many different ways.
IMPLEMENTATION
We aim to permit children to develop and explore physical skills with increasing control and coordination. This is done by encouraging children to work and play with others in a range of group situations. Children are taught how to recognise and describe how their bodies feel during exercise and express their imagination and creativity through movement. Children are also taught to develop an understanding of how to succeed in a range of physical activities and how to evaluate theirs and others successes. Aims are met by using a variety of different teaching and learning styles during P.E. lessons. Children are constantly challenged with regards to their ability and may be grouped by skill level in order to differentiate tasks so every child is getting the help and support they need to progress; this includes the use of extra support staff.
Our school uses the National Curriculum as the basis for planning in P.E. In Key Stage 1 we teach dance, gymnastics and games following Sports Coach UK’s ‘Coaching for Fundamentals’ scheme of work allowing children to develop Fundamentals of Movement (FOM) and Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS). This is all done with an emphasis on creativity and activeness. Children are consistently encouraged to use their imagination during activities and the learning of new skills is always supplemented with fun games to promote movement and enjoyment in lessons. The KS1 curriculum is designed to build on previously learnt skills so balance and co-ordination are taught before gymnastics and dance. Throwing and catching are taught before the introduction of invasion type games and so on.
EYFS follow a similar curriculum map to KS1 to prepare them for KS1 P.E. but with a stronger emphasis on movement and progress at a slower rate. They start the year very simply learning how to follow instructions of stop and start and are encouraged to use their imagination as much as possible. There is also an emphasis on outdoor creative play using the Early Years area as well as our school Fitness Trial. Children are taught how to balance using tyres and crates and are introduced to the idea of challenge by trying new things and learning how to be safe on equipment whilst developing an enjoyment for being outside.
In Key Stage 2 the curriculum is advanced by developing FMS into Fundamental Sports Skills (FSS) and then finally into Sport Specific Skills (SSS) which will be used extensively in higher education as well as the outside sports clubs children are encouraged to seek out and join. Key Stage 2 also covers compulsory dance, gymnastics and games as well as swimming, athletics and outdoor adventurous activities. The KS2 curriculum is designed around which sports are suited by the weather e.g. outside sports are covered before and after the harshness of the winter. It is also designed to follow the annual competition calendar so that children are naturally in training for events before teams are even selected, which makes the process far easier. The overall profile of competitive sport has been raised year upon year at St. Paul’s with us entering more competitions annually and achieving far higher in a lot of them.
There is also an emphasis on personal development and children are stimulated to discuss the cultural impact of sports and understand the origins of games and why they were invented, the social influence sport can have and how sport has affected them personally with their peers, the moral guidance and discipline sport can give you which is explored greatly in martial arts after-school clubs and the spiritual connection you can gain from practicing disciplines like yoga. We believe at St. Paul’s P.E. and School Sport should provide life experience to our children which is why we attend as many interschool competitions as possible and provide children with residential visits where they get chance to try brand new activities, face their fears and challenge themselves in a safe, non-judgemental environment.
With this comes the development of transferable skills which are subconsciously used when learning a new activity due to already being competent at skills which naturally build off one another. An example of this is promoting a good warm up routine where mobilisation and stretching are done in a series of movements at the start of every lesson. This can organically inspire children to flow through gymnastic or dance routines and understand the importance of fluently linking movements together, as they do it daily during their warm up. Movements like these are studied by our PE Lead and implemented into daily practice through their own experience of the benefits they offer. Children are reminded that skills like these are essential for a long, healthy life where you can positively function throughout the day. We believe in engraining the principle of practice into our pupils from a young age so that they can reap the life-long benefits.
Sports activities form an important part of our Enrichment activities which take place on Friday afternoon. Enrichment enables the children to experience different sports and activities not usually covered in P.E. lessons, like badminton and volleyball. Since acquiring the Fitness Trial, this year’s enrichment is based on utilising the equipment and making sure children are aware of the skills they are developing when using it. They are taught about hanging, gripping, upper body strength, pulling and holding your own body weight, climbing, swinging and balancing on non-stationary objects. Many of these skills are not possible to teach without the correct equipment. For KS2 these skills link to the Heath Related Fitness (HRF) unit of work the children do during the Spring Term.
The PE leader at our school completes daily plans for each lesson which provides a rough template of the specific learning objectives and gives details on how the lessons can be taught. This helps enable other teachers to deliver a similar standard of learning when they do PE lessons with their class, yet keeps in mind that everybody’s teaching style is different and providing the content is similar, children will still acquire what they need from that lesson.
Assessment is, for the most part, formative and builds lesson upon lesson. PE planning is used to ensure the data from the previous lesson’s assessment is used to promote progression through a scheme of work. Year 5 and 6 spend their first lesson of a new unit showcasing what they already know and can do. That way plans are not re-used and children aren’t being stalled but designed so that they can be took further than they did the year before. Summative assessment is used for gymnastics and dance which result in an end of unit routine or choreography however the most commonly used method of assessment is peer assessment where children are asked to comment on how their thought another group performed, using correct and appropriate language for that area and offering feedback for improvement. This showcases understanding far more than prompted questioning and keeps children involved and active throughout the whole learning process.
Please see PE Curriculum Map in files
IMPACT
All children of all abilities enjoy P.E. and feel confident to take part in lessons as well as attend extracurricular after school clubs. This is evidenced by the increase in after-school club numbers each term.
Children are inspired to seek out further development in local clubs which is encouraged by staff and have a good knowledge of the variety of sports out there which can be played for competitive purposes or for fun and leisure. This is evidenced by more children attending clubs and asking questions about information regarding local sport specific clubs.
All children will progress through school becoming more aware of their body and how to reach their physical potential, understanding the importance of regular stretching and injury prevention so they can compete at higher levels and are ready for the next stage in their physical journey.