Physical Education (PE)

Intent

At St. Joseph’s, we aim to support and motivate children across the school in engaging with more physical activity, exercise and sport in order to improve their physical and mental well-being. We want our children to understand that physical education in a safe supportive environment, is a unique and vital contributor to their physical development and well-being. Our broad and balanced physical education curriculum intends to provide pupils with increasing self-confidence in their ability to manage themselves and their bodies within a variety of movement situations.

At St Joseph’s, we aim to provide many opportunities for all children to take part in physical activity and exercise on a regular basis in order to become more physically confident and competent. Through engaging PE lessons, school-based initiatives and a wide variety of sporting opportunities, we will encourage children to lead a healthy lifestyle and develop a lifelong interest in participating in physical activity and sport. Our progressive learning objectives, combined with sympathetic and varied teaching approaches, provide stimulating, enjoyable, satisfying and appropriately challenging learning experiences for all children. We want our children to enjoy success and be motivated to further develop their individual potential.

Implementation

At St. Joseph’s, we base the teaching and learning of PE on guidance from the National Curriculum and adapt it to the needs of our children through the use of ‘Get Set 4 PE’ and ‘Real PE’ schemes of work. PE lessons are delivered by the class teacher and Sports Apprentice and we provide two hours of high-quality physical activity for each pupil each week (a year group will have swimming).

All children, regardless of ability, are given access to the PE curriculum. PE forms part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Through our PE teaching we provide learning opportunities that enable all children to make progress. Children are set suitable learning challenges and we respond to children’s differing individual needs. We achieve this through a range of strategies: for example, adapting a task to support and extend the ability of the child; providing different sized pieces of equipment to develop skills and deploying the Sports Apprentice to support a group of target children. Learning activities are carefully planned which allow personal success and progression for all learners. Classes are grouped according to the needs of children and activities; sometimes according to ability and sometimes in mixed ability groups.

At St Joseph’s, we provide a range of extra-curricular sporting clubs run by class teachers. These run throughout the year and offer a wider variety of sports for children to engage in. We offer some lunch time sports clubs which are aimed at target children to develop their physical or mental well-being. All our children can be given the opportunity to represent the school through inter- and intra- school sports. These include competitive matches, tournaments, festivals and galas. We keep a record of which children represent the school at each sporting event which enables us to create and offer opportunities for all children.

We also run a Playground Leader initiative; 18 children from Year 4-6 support younger children in the Lower Phase playground at lunchtime. Here, they informally lead active play whilst supporting and encouraging younger children to develop their physical and social skills. Not only does this develop the confidence and self-esteem of the older children, but it has also seen improvements in the behaviour of younger children at lunch times and their communication skills.

Impact

We can see that PE develops the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing competence and confidence in a range of physical activities. These include dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics and outdoor adventure activities. Our children gain an understanding of their bodies when they are in action. Our children benefit from PE through having to think, select and apply their skills. PE also promotes positive attitudes towards a healthier lifestyle. At St. Joseph’s, we enable and prepare our children to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives.