In the spring term we had a very special visit from GB athlete Danny Butler. The children competed in a fitness challenge and we helped raise money for new sports equipment for our school. Danny gave us a short assembly on his inspiring story and the children were super impressed with his bike skills!

What is Physical Education (P.E.)?

P.E is part of the curriculum that can contribute most to the physical development and experience of the pupils. Through physical education, children are given the opportunity to develop knowledge, skills and understanding so that they can perform with increasing competence and confidence in a range of physical activities. These include dance, games, gymnastics, athletics and swimming. Physical Education promotes an understanding in children of their bodies in action. It involves thinking, selecting and applying skills, and it promotes a positive attitude towards a healthy lifestyle. Thus, we enable children to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives.

Intent

Vision Statement

At St. Mary’s we believe that every child matters, valuing all children in our school equally.  All children have the same entitlement to the whole school curriculum and we are committed to making this accessible to all children through differentiation and by using a variety of teaching and learning styles, according to the needs of the child. At St Mary’s we encourage all children to participate in a range of sports. Children will develop a range of skills, tactics, techniques and positioning that can be applied to a variety of sports, both individually and as part of a team. We encourage and teach the importance of respect, fair-play and healthy competition as well as a love of sorts.

The specific aims of teaching P.E in school are:

• Participate and develop physical competency in a wide range of physical activities that provide appropriate challenge with acceptable risk
• Build confidence and resilience to try hard and make progress across all activities
• Enjoy learning in and through the subject across the domains of physical skills, creative and thinking skills, and social, personal and leadership skills, and be able to apply those skills across their wider learning and beyond school
• Be highly motivated and understand how to plan, organise and lead their own healthy, active lifestyles as well as influence those around them
• Develop their physical well-being through increased stamina, strength and suppleness, and recognise the positive impact on their emotional well-being and health from engaging in physical activity on a regular basis
• Be involved in learning about risk management, and their responsibility in this, in order for them to participate independently in physical activity in later life.

Implementation

Curriculum

All pupils at St Mary’s are entitled to a progressive and comprehensive Physical Education programme that embraces current statutory orders of the National Curriculum and takes into account the specific setting of our lovely school site and its proximity to local countryside and canal ways.

Our curriculum will provide activities to promote a broad base of movement knowledge and skills, placing pupils in cooperative, collaborative and competitive situations that aim to cater for the preferences, strengths and needs of every pupil. We will develop their creative and expressive abilities, and provide situations where pupils work independently, in pairs and in groups. They will be encouraged to appreciate the importance of having a healthy body and begin to understand the factors that affect health and well-being. Our curriculum embraces the Statutory Orders of the National Curriculum. It is inclusive and every pupil has equal access irrespective of their age, gender or ethnic background.

All pupils at St Mary’s have access to all components of the National Curriculum Programme of Study including athletics, dance, games, gymnastics, outdoor and adventurous activities and swimming.

We provide all pupils with 2 x curriculum periods per week of high-quality Physical Education – maximum teaching time has recently been boosted since pupils come to school in their PE kit on PE days which is an initiative we hope to retain.

We use PE Planning to assist with planning for lessons that are adapted to suit the needs of the class. Individual teachers are responsible for their own learning objectives and outcomes to suit the needs of their group as they get to understand the needs of the pupils. Learning objectives are made clear to the class. It is important that specific learning about safety is annotated in planning. Teachers should undergo their own ‘dynamic risk assessment’ of the teaching area, weather conditions etc and adapt their plan accordingly.

Each lesson should include a warm-up and cool-down relevant to the main activity and learning environment – given the location of our school field, this could be jogging to/from the field alongside some safe stretching exercises. Pupils should progressively be taught how to warm up and cool down independently. 

Swimming takes place for all pupils in Year 5 – initially, 6 weeks of swimming per class to assess ability and additional TOP UP swimming is provided for all those in Year 5 and 6 (and beyond if necessary) until National Curriculum standards are reached. Swimming lessons are planned and delivered by swimming instructors but PE and class teachers support these sessions.

Our current year 6 class hs a 58% pass rate in their swimming lessons. 

Teaching and Learning

PE is timetabled and monitored by the Senior Leadership Team to ensure all children are meeting the required time active time set by the Government.

We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in PE lessons. Our principal aim is to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, and we do this through a mixture of whole-class teaching and individual or group activities. Teachers draw attention to good examples of individual performance as models for the other children, and we encourage the children to evaluate their own work as well as the work of other children. Within lessons we give children the opportunity both to collaborate and to compete with each other, and they have the opportunity to use a wide range of resources.

In all classes children have a range of physical ability. Whilst recognising this fact, we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this through a range of strategies e.g. setting common tasks that are open-ended and can have a variety of results, setting tasks of increasing difficulty, where not all children complete all tasks, grouping children by ability, and setting different tasks for each group, providing a range of challenge through the provision of different resources.

Extra-Curricular

St Mary’s children are encouraged to be competitive in sports and therefore are provided with many opportunities to compete. This can be within lessons, extra-curricular clubs, school games and local competitions and leagues. The ‘school games’ are an approach to competitive school sports, designed to motivate and enthuse all young people.

A year-round sporting calendar is created and specifically designed to get young people competing at intra–school (level 1) and inter-school (level 2). Winners of level 2 events will qualify to compete for the title of County champions at the level 3 school games. St Mary’s enters many of these competitions. St Mary’s was awarded with the GOLD School Games award. St Mary’s is very lucky to be part of the Cardinal Griffin Cluster where a variety of competitions involving numerous sports are organised throughout the year.

For further information about PE at St Mary's please take a look at our Sports Premium Action Plan and Impact Report which can also be found on our website.