PE Subject Information

At Birchington CE Primary School, we strive to ignite and preserve the excitement and opportunities surrounding physical education. We aim to deliver a curriculum that inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in individual abilities and promote self-esteem. We want to encourage our children to adopt and sustain a healthy and physically active lifestyle that they enjoy. We believe that PE, when experienced in a safe and supportive environment, is essential to all children’s physical and emotional development.

Providing children with a wide range of sporting opportunities and high-quality specialist teaching in PE is important at Birchington Primary School. We introduce our children to different sports to enable them to adopt an array of skills which they can succeed in, both independently and within a team environment.

A choice of sports clubs, competitions, workshops and fixtures encourage all children to have a go and participate in varied sporting activities. This empowers children with different interests and aspirations to succeed and challenge themselves or for them to simply enjoy being physically active. 

Subject Overview

At Birchington CE Primary School, PE is taught from when the children first arrive at school in EYFS. Children at our school participate in high quality PE lessons, covering a different sporting discipline each term, and take part in a broad range of team games throughout the year to develop and consolidate fundamental skills. PE is taught by qualified sports coaches from Total Sports Coaching. In addition, children are encouraged to participate in extra-curricular clubs, activities and workshops and are invited to attend competitive sporting events within the local area.

PE is led by Miss Fowler and is part of the Healthy Body, Healthy Mind Hub. We are fortunate to have a variety of areas and learning environments in which PE can be taught. The outside areas for PE include: the school field, the Muga and 3 large playgrounds. Inside, PE may be taught in one of the three halls. The curriculum is spilt into different units of work. Each unit of work is focused on particular skills which are learnt through either one sport or a selection of different sports.

The National Curriculum skills content for PE Key Stage 1

Pupils should develop fundamental movement skills, become increasingly competent and confident and access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others. They should be able to engage in competitive (both against self and against others) and co-operative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations. Pupils should be taught to:

• master basic movements including running, jumping, throwing and catching, as well as developing balance, agility and co-ordination, and begin to apply these in a range of activities

• participate in team games, developing simple tactics for attacking and defending

• perform dances using simple movement patterns.

Key Stage 2

Pupils should continue to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement. They should enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other. They should develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success. Pupils should be taught to:

• use running, jumping, throwing and catching in isolation and in combination

• play competitive games, modified where appropriate [for example, badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders and tennis], and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending

• develop flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance [for example, through athletics and gymnastics]

• perform dances using a range of movement patterns

• take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team

• compare their performances with previous ones and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.

Our curriculum is broken down into the following sports: Dance, Gymnastics, Invasion Games, Net and Wall/Striking and Fielding Games, Athletics and OAA. Swimming is also part of the National Curriculum, and this is taught in Year 4. If there are any children that require a few extra sessions or a booster, this is done at the end of Year 4. Children learn skills in a range of different ways and will have the opportunity to work independently and as a part of a team. Pupils develop leadership and reflection skills in PE through peer and self-assessment. They also gain the knowledge of what affects physical activity has on the body and learn about the importance of staying active. An integral part of our PE curriculum is for our children to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding of physical education, so they can go on to sustain this in their own lives. We aim to build children’s confidence and levels of resilience so they achieve.

Rationale

At Birchington CE Primary School we believe that physical education forms an essential foundation for the growth of the whole child and embed lifelong values. We provide our children with opportunities to: develop personal and social skills, build character, enhance team work and self-esteem that enables them to become confident to support their health, fitness and well-being. We have chosen to teach PE using a programme called IPEP. This is to ensure children receive a high quality, progressive and sequenced curriculum that will in turn prepare them for the next stages in their education and integrate life long learning. In addition, we value the physical education and sporting activities we, as a school provide during lessons, school clubs, lunch times and competitive sporting fixtures. Through these extra-curricular activities, we are able to give all groups of pupils the chance to develop positive attitudes to participation in physical activity and respond to a range of challenges to different physical contexts and environments. We also believe in the importance of providing our pupils with a high-quality swimming programme, due to our school being in close proximity to the coastline and the beach. We want our pupils to enjoy our local environment, but most importantly be safe when doing so.