Curriculum – PE

It is our intent to provide a PE curriculum that pupils from Reception to Year 6 not only enjoy but also allows them to experience a range of activities that help them to develop their health, fitness and wellbeing. We intend to offer a high-quality physical education curriculum that inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities. It provides opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which 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.

Curriculum Implementation

Through the framework of the 2014 National Curriculum, Physical Education taught at St Bede’s School, aims to ensure that all children:

  • develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
  • are physically active for sustained periods of time
  • engage in competitive sports and activities
  • lead healthy, active lives

PE is a foundation subject in the National Curriculum. Our school uses the objectives from the curriculum as the basis for the planning in PE. Planning is progressive and begins with basic skills which are then applied and practised in a range of contexts and with increasing demand, competition and complexity. Each child receives 2 hours of curriculum time PE on a weekly basis which is carefully planned and mapped out to ensure a broad and full range of skills and activities. These sessions are either delivered by specialist coaches or class teachers during PE lessons. Pupils in KS1 are given ample opportunities to develop their fundamental movement skills and extend their agility, balance and coordination. They engage in competitive and cooperative physical activities through games, dance and gymnastics. In KS2, pupils continue to apply and develop a broader range of skills such as running, jumping, throwing and catching. These skills are incorporated into competitive games, performances using movement patterns and evaluations of their own and others’ work. Pupils communicate and collaborate with each other and develop an understanding of how to improve in physical activities. There are opportunities across the year for children to take part in inter and intra school competitions where children’s successes in sports are celebrated. Children in Key Stage 2 attend swimming lessons at the local swimming pool where they are taught to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of 25m using a range of strokes.

As an Active School, we aim to ensure that the children participate in active lessons outside their regular PE lessons. This involves incorporating moments within lessons whereby the children can be active.  We aim to provide all pupils with at least 30 minutes of active lessons every day. In addition to this we source high quality PE coaches that work with children throughout lunchtimes, thus ensuring all children have access to PE everyday.

We follow the guidelines set by the national curriculum to ensure we offer a range of PE activities that allow each child to feel challenged and offer opportunities to progress further.

Curriculum Impact

The aim is that our extensive PE curriculum will impact greatly on our children’s ability to acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to make appropriate choices about their physical and mental health.  The curriculum will develop positive self-awareness in children as they become physically competent. They will also demonstrate a healthy attitude to competition, showing respect for individuals, teams, officials and coaches.

The impact and measure of this is to ensure that our children are equipped with skills and knowledge of PE that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world.

We want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about PE, therefore encouraging them to undertake new life experiences now and in the future.

Teachers assess children’s work in PE by making informal judgements against objectives. At the end of the year, the class teacher makes a summary judgement about the work of each pupil in relation to the skills they have developed in-line with the National Curriculum and these are reported to parents as part of the child’s annual school report. We use this as the basis for assessing the progress of the child and we pass this information on to the next teacher at the end of the year.