Intent

The national curriculum for physical education aims to ensure that all pupils:

• 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

Grayswood C of E Primary School is passionate about the teaching of PE. A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel. Our Curriculum helps to develop the physical literacy, emotional and thinking skills to achieve in PE, sport and life. 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.

PE develops the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing competence in a range of physical activities. These include dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics and outdoor adventurous activities. PE promotes an understanding in children of their bodies in action. It involves thinking, selecting and applying skills, and it promotes positive attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle. Thus, we enable children to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives.

The aims of teaching physical education in our school are:

• to enable children to develop and explore physical skills with increasing control and coordination;
  to encourage children to work and play with others in a range of group situations;
• to develop the way in which children perform skills, and apply rules and conventions, for different activities;
• to show children how to improve the quality and control of their performance;
• to teach children to recognise and describe how their bodies feel during exercise;
• to develop children’s enjoyment of physical activity through creativity and  imagination;
  to develop an understanding in children of how to succeed in a range of physical activities, and how to evaluate their own success.

Implementation

Each week children access a minimum of two hours of high quality structured physical activity. A specialist Physical Education teacher teaches most year groups at least once a week. Children develop age-appropriate PE skills through a series of stimulating lessons which are planned, with clear knowledge and skills-based learning objectives and subject-specific vocabulary. 

The Grayswood Curriculum is shaped by our school vision which aims to enable all children to flourish and develop lifelong passion for learning and create positive relationships with physical activity for life. By following realPE’s Scheme of work, we are able to meet our vision and aims. The scheme of work is supported by clear skills and knowledge progression. These are built on year on year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children.

We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in our PE lessons. Our principle aim us to focus on the children’s agility, balance and coordination, healthy competition and cooperative learning 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.

We recognise that in all classes children have a wide range of physical ability, and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. Children with SEND have access to a range of different activities and equipment to support their learning needs.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for our staff to be able to deliver highly effective and robust curriculum and as members of realPE, our teachers have access to training videos to develop their subject knowledge and ongoing CPD to enable them to deliver lessons of a high calibre and ensure pupil progression.

We are introducing an alternative to The Daily Mile which will be a short fitness session, twice a week, for every pupil in the school. This will take place before the day begins and will be run by the Year 6 Sports Leaders supported by members of staff.

Grayswood has recently introduced ‘Cross Curricular Orienteering’. Each class is taught a unit of orienteering skills within the PE curriculum and then the scheme is used across all subjects throughout the school. This enables learning to take place in an active and outdoor setting.

Children are encouraged to participate in the varied range of extra-curricular activities including netball, football, cricket, rounders, athletics and dance.

Children are invited to attend competitive sporting events within the local area. This is an inclusive approach which endeavours to encourage not only physical development but also mental well-being. These events also develop teamwork and leadership skills and are very much enjoyed by the children.

Each year a group of Year 6 children are invited to become Sports Leaders for the school. They develop into sporting role models for the younger children, assisting with lunchtime clubs, organising intra-school sporting festivals, helping throughout the annual Sports day and any other sporting activities.

Children in Year 2 swim once a week for 10 weeks during the Summer Term.  We give an opportunity later in school for any children that are still unable to meet the End of Key Stage 2 swimming requirements.

Impact

Our curriculum is designed so that there is a clear progression of learning throughout the school which is assessed termly. Children are supported in their understanding through the introduction of specific vocabulary year on year.

Through the realPE programme we use Assessment Wheels to track the children’s progress.

We assess all of the Multi-abilities (personal, social, creative, cognitive, applying physical, health and fitness) and 6 of the 12 Fundamental Movement Skills Sets (skills set 1 Static Balance – 1 leg, Skill set 3 Balance floorwork, Skill set 6 Dynamic balance to Agility Jumping and Landing, Skill set 8 Coordination sending and receiving, Skill set 10 Coordination footwork, and Skill set 12 Agility reaction/response).  This enables the teacher to assess the children’s overall ability for their ABC’s (Agility, Balance, Coordination skills).  This aligns with the National Curriculum and EYFS Early Learning Goals.

Enrichment in PE

In addition to the curriculum, we offer the following enrichment opportunities in PE for children at Grayswood CE Primary School:

• A wide range of after school sporting clubs for Key Stage 1 and 2 children
• Matches against local schools
• District and confederation tournaments
• Confederation sporting events
• District Sports Day
• Annual Sports Day
• Sports Crew training for 10x Year 6 children
• Young Leaders Training for 10x Year 2 children
• ‘Alternative Daily Mile’ run by the Year 6 Sports Crew
• Physifun activities led by the Sports Crew at break times and lunchtimes
• 2 members of staff trained to assist with Physifun sessions
• Physifun Festivals 
• Dance workshops celebrating Diwali and World Book Day
• Skip2bfit workshops
• Celebration of children’s achievements in sport participated in outside of school
• Surrey Bikeability 1 course for Year 6
• Surrey Bikeability 2 course for Year 4
• Feet First safely walking course for Year 3
• Sponsored Charity ‘Rudolph ’run in aid of Phyllis Tuckwell charity
• Links with local clubs who are invited to give taster sessions e.g. Girls football
• Orienteering day for the whole school
• Real PE day for the whole school
• Links with The Royal Academy of Dance who offer of children a series of dance sessions