Intent

The physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to participate in physically-demanding activities at their own level, to be successful and achieve their full potential. It should provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. This includes giving opportunities for KS2 to take part in competitive sport where they learn to build character and help to live out our school values of fairness, respect and perseverance.

Aims

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 (see timetables).  
• Engage in competitive sports and activities from KS2.
• Lead healthy, active lives.
• By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the skills specified in the relevant programme of study.

EYFS 

Physical Development Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence. 

Expressive Arts and Design (Dance) The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe. 

ELG 

Gross Motor Skills Children at the expected level of development will: - Negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others; - Demonstrate strength, balance and coordination when playing; - Move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing. 

Fine Motor Skills Children at the expected level of development will: - Hold a pencil effectively in preparation for fluent writing – using the tripod grip in almost all cases; - Use a range of small tools, including scissors, paint brushes and cutlery; - Begin to show accuracy and care when drawing. 

Being Imaginative and Expressive 

Perform songs, rhymes, poems and stories with others, and – when appropriate – try to move in time with music. 

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.

Implementation

The teaching of physical education across St John’s follows the National Curriculum through:

• Comprehensive and thorough bespoke planners of topics designed specifically for our school community.
• Breadth of learning from EYFS to KS2, where knowledge and skills are developed progressively and abstract ideas/vocabulary (e.g. key skills ) are revisited and built upon with each year group.
• Cross curricular links where children are encouraged to apply other learning e.g. dance is taught in line with topics of each year group in order to provide purpose, consolidate topic vocabulary and embed learning.
• Collaborative learning, where children work together towards goals, exploring different roles within a team.
• Focus on retrieval and revisiting knowledge to allow it to be embedded in the long term memory.

We have sports provision from Sports Active and qualified coaches teach most of our lessons. Teachers also have had training with these coaches to ensure high quality PE provision. Children participate in the Daily Mile regularly, organised by Mr Hudson-Evans, our coach. He also organises Active Games during lunchtimes and after school sports clubs e.g. cricket and football. 

Impact

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice) and asking key assessment questions to a range of children.
• Monitoring teacher planning as appropriate.
• Celebrating images and videos of the children’s practical learning as appropriate.

An important part of quality PE teaching and learning is catering for all types of learners. At St John's we carefully consider the needs of all our children as individuals. Open our maps to see how teaching staff reflect on pedagogical structures and strategies to allow all children to experience an exciting and engaging curriculum!