“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” Michael Jordan
PE Curriculum Intent
At Essa, we want to inspire, engage and challenge children by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to become confident sportspeople, dancers and gymnasts. We aim to enable all children to succeed in sports and other physical activity through developing their knowledge and skills in different disciplines. However, PE goes beyond this and, through PE, the children also learn a range of physical, thinking, social and emotional skills that enable them to develop a life-long healthy lifestyle. They are enabled to develop a positive attitude towards their own wellbeing, which allows them to tackle the challenges of everyday life and thrive in modern-day society.
Children learn key facts about different disciplines in PE, including rues of games and information about healthy bodies (substantive knowledge). They develop their expertise as sportspeople, gymnasts and dancers by learning key skills that will enable them to improv their performance (disciplinary knowledge).
The knowledge and skills that the children develop are progressive from EYFS to Year 6. When selecting the content of the curriculum, teachers have taken into account what the children need based on their prior knowledge and experiences.
To ensure that this progression is embedded, we use ‘Big Ideas’ as ‘golden threads’.
The ‘Big Ideas’ for PE are:
· Games
· Athletics
· Dance
· Gymnastics
· OAA (outdoor adventurous education)
These golden threads run through our curriculum planning from Reception to Year 6 and allow children to explore common themes across different units of work. Careful consideration is given to building a schema of PE knowledge and following a well-sequenced curriculum. The ‘Big Ideas’ are taught at least once in every year group and this allows children to create a schema of PE knowledge that flows and progresses with them throughout their educational journey.
PE Curriculum implementation
The curriculum is built on the foundation of three ‘Es’:
Entitlement or core curriculum offer
The development of PE skills begins in EYFS, where physical development is one of the three prime areas with early learning goals focused upon developing gross motor skills. Children move energetically, negotiate objects and develop strength, balance and coordination. Physical development is vital in children, enabling them to pursue healthy, active lives. Gross and fine motor skills are developed through sensory explorations, focusing on strength, co-ordination and positional awareness. We provide opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, which supports our children in building core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness and agility. PE has a high profile; in KS1 and KS2, we use ‘Get Set 4 PE’ scheme to support the children’s learning. In KS1, children master basic gymnastic movements, generic games skills are taught and developed and gross motor skills are further developed. In KS2, children continue to develop and apply fundamental movement skills across a range of activities and competitive sports, as individuals and part of a team.
To ensure that all pupils are physically literate, PE is taught twice weekly and the focus is on providing opportunities for children to engage in and improve their performance in a wide range of activities and sports, by learning the skills required to engage. Swimming is part of the national curriculum and there is provision for one year group in KS2 to participate in a block of swimming lessons, with the aim of being able to swim 25m, use a range of strokes and perform safe self-rescue.
Enjoyment
Children who demonstrate a love for PE have the opportunity to develop this in a number of ways:
· A variety of extra-curricular clubs such as football, yoga, dodgeball and gymnastics
· Opportunities to use a variety of equipment during break times and lunchtimes
· Competitions and festivals focusing on enjoyment
Excellence
Children who excel in PE have the opportunity to develop their talents in a number of ways
· A variety of extra-curricular clubs that children are invited to join
· Selection for competitions and festivals
· Sports’ leaders as part of the wider student leadership team
· Opportunity to become playground leaders
Impact
All of our school community (staff, senior leaders, governors and children are involved in measuring the impact of our Science curriculum in different ways. This is planned for through the School Development Plan, and using our annual monitoring cycle and termly development plan to map out monitoring and review over the year.
Impact is measured by:
- Collecting data from formative assessments (whole-class quizzes, assessment cups, exit tickets)
- Pupil voice to determine what children have remembered over time
- Staff voice to determine effectiveness of provided planning and the impact of professional development
- Parent voice in our annual survey
- Reviewing learning in sketch books
- Reviewing progress made against steps to success each lesson and across a sequence of lessons
- Governor visits to evaluate different areas of Art
An impact statement is written each term by subject leaders to assess effectiveness of current provision, progress against objectives on action plans and inform and identify next steps.