PE Lead: Ben Hamblin

What is Physical Education?

Physical education develops pupils' physical competence and confidence, and their ability to use these to perform in a range of activities.  It promotes physical skilfulness, physical development and knowledge of the body in action.  Physical education provides opportunities for pupils to be creative, competitive and to face up to different challenges as individuals and in groups and teams.  It promotes positive attitudes towards active and healthy lifestyles.  Pupils learn how to think in different ways to suit a wide variety of creative, competitive and challenging activities.  They learn how to plan, perform and evaluate actions, ideas and performances to improve their quality and effectiveness.  Through this process pupils discover their aptitudes, abilities and preferences, and make choices about how to get involved in lifelong physical activity.

Our Curriculum Intent

At Trent Young’s, we want our children to understand that PE is the study of sport, health and fitness through developing competence in a broad range of activities, in order to support and encourage their active, healthy lives beyond their PE lessons. We want to provide a high-quality PE curriculum which inspires all children to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities. It should provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way that supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect. Our vision of ‘Let Your Light Shine’ drives our PE curriculum as we strive to allow all children to be the best they can be whilst also supporting their peers to excel too.

Our Curriculum Implementation

We use ‘Primary PE Planning’ as the starting point for our curriculum and to guide our teaching and learning. Each unit of learning strives to allow all children to develop their knowledge and competence in sports. Clear progression within the unit is shown both in the substantive knowledge and the development of our key and disciplinary concepts, which are described in the progression tables below.

All pupils are entitled to a progressive and comprehensive physical education programme which covers National Curriculum requirements and which takes account of individual interests and needs. In addition to this, pupils will experience at least five components of the National Curriculum programmes of study, (athletics, dance, games, gymnastics, outdoor education and swimming) so that they have every opportunity to meet and exceed expected levels. To this end, no pupils will be excluded from any physical education programme. Lessons will provide good quality experiences that are suitably challenging for all pupils.  Pupils will undertake different activities, but all pupils will be given the same opportunity to achieve the aims through an appropriate range of activities. 

Children will take part in two PE lessons each week, with each of these lessons lasting for one hour. They will also complete daily physical activity in the form of our daily mile, use of our outdoor gym equipment or classroom yoga. Swimming lessons take place for children in Year 4, during which time, we can make a judgement about their ability to meet the end-of-key-stage requirements. If children have not met these standards by the end of this swimming unit, additional swimming tuition will be given during Years 5 and 6. 

In Key Stage 1, a focus on key, fundamental movement skills is prioritised over sport-focused lessons as we feel this ensures the children have the building blocks they need before focusing more specifically on sports during KS2.

• We have a two-year rolling programme across the whole school. Whilst we appreciate this can lead to repetition of sports in KS2, consideration is always given to providing a range of activities and sports, alongside prior assessments. We also feel this approach is most appropriate in ensuring mastery in the key concepts listed below.
•  in Key Stage 1, and a three year rolling programme in Key Stage 2.
• We organise our knowledge into key concepts: these are strands of substantive knowledge, which build over time. Alongside substantive knowledge, we teach disciplinary concepts (how physical education knowledge is built).
• Each unit lists the key subject specific vocabulary to be learned, although these lists are not exhaustive. Even in a subject like PE where much of the focus is on movement and physical outcomes, time is devoted to the development of vocabulary as well as ensuring that vocabulary already mastered is used.
• Links are made with prior learning, and when appropriate, with other subjects.

Our Curriculum Impact

The evaluation of learning takes place in a number of ways:

• Assessment takes place throughout each lesson, using formative strategies such as asking challenging, in-depth questions; feedback through observation and discussion; opportunities for children to evaluate and respond to performances and improve their work;  and self-assessment and peer assessment.
• Teachers frequently check children’s learning, for example through low-stakes quizzes and retrieval practice.
• Teachers frequently check children’s learning and use the ‘Progress-o-meter’ to annotate on so they can track progression through units of work.
• Key learning and understanding for each unit is identified, and forms the basis of summative assessment at the end of each term.

Curriculum Drivers:

More in-depth documentation is available on request for our PE curriculum.