At St Mary’s, the fundamental role of PE lies in helping children become physically literate and possess the necessary skills, knowledge and motivation to equip them for a healthy, active lifestyle.

PE develops links between school, home and the community by providing opportunities for the children to participate in a large variety of activities which will build character and embed key values like fairness and respect. This incorporates the Christian ethos of love and respect and encourages our pupils to take the feelings of others into consideration, just like the Good Samaritan. The Physical Education curriculum should be seen as an inclusive one and should develop the potential of each individual child so that by the end of their time at St Mary’s, children are encouraged to have a lifelong participation in physical activity and sport.

Intent

We believe every level of physical education should be a safe, supportive environment for children, where they are allowed to experience new opportunities and freely express themselves. We intend to promote positive attitudes towards lifelong health, hygiene and fitness and ensure that children develop a knowledge of safety factors and foster an appreciation of safe practice. Children will develop fair play, cooperation, team spirit, sportsmanship and the ability to deal with both success and failure. Opportunities will support children to develop the ability to remember, adapt and apply knowledge, practical skills and concepts in a variety of movement based activities. They will be given the opportunities to plan, practise and evaluate skills taught and learnt, developing their communications skills and encouraging the use of correct terminology, to promote effective co-operation. Above all, the intention is to foster an enjoyment and positive attitude to PE and Sport in school, by allowing children to discover their own aptitudes and preferences for a range of dfferent activities.

Implementation

Our school provides 2 hours of quality PE for all pupils, in order to meet the Government public service agreement. The PE curriculum has been developed from the national curriculum and is supported by specialist planning. Each class has timetabled access to the hall and the playground for PE, twice a week. The school field is also used for PE lessons. All children, regardless of gender, race or disability, are provided with the same experiences in PE.

Continuity and progression from Foundation to Key Stage 2 is crucial by means of careful, structured planning, monitoring and assessment.

All children have access to physical education both during and out of school hours. After School clubs provide focused sport teaching, delivered by a qualified sports coach. We have established Sports Leaders, Year 4 children, who have the opportunity to guide and lead sports activities at lunchtime, and have undertaken training to be playground leaders outside, learning to listen and further communicate their good ideas.

We encourage as many children as possible to compete in local events in a range of different sports and activities, giving them the experience of competitive sport and the self-belief to undertake that challenge. We provide swimming lessons for Year 3 and 4 children, for one term each year, which allow them to develop key skills to be used in later life. We use Progressive Sports to provide additional quality days of sporting enrichment with unusual challenges, such as Olympic days, Karate challenge and Glow Dodgeball. This gives children a sporting experience which they may never usually undertake.

Impact

Children love sport and enjoy their PE lessons. We have raised the profile across the school through high quality events, teaching, learning and competitions.. Children enjoy being healthy and there has been a rise in the number of children wanting to compete in extra-curricular sporting activities and competitions with other schools. The children have a competitive nature that allows them the desire to succeed, yet have developed the resilience necessary to not abandon their ambitions at the first sign of failure. We want to continue to keep PE at the forefront of this school and ensure that children are active.

PE Policy

PE Vocabulary List