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PE

At Emmbrook Infant School we value the importance of a high-quality teaching throughout our Physical Education lessons.  We aim to engage and include all children in fun and highly active PE sessions to develop an enjoyment and love for sport, whilst also encouraging a healthy lifestyle that they will carry with them through their lives.

We include regular opportunities for all children to be involved in competitive team and individual sport against their peers and participating in intra-school and inter-school competitions.

We utilise the expertise of carefully selected and highly skilled sports coach to deliver one out of our two weekly PE lessons, ensuring the children receive a knowledge rich, sequenced curriculum.

The second lesson is a gym or dance based session which teaches the children to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others.

KS1 PE National Curriculum Content

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

PE in the In Early Years

In Early Years children are assessed against the Early Learning Goal for Physical Development. Planning is based on the developmental milestones contained in Development Matters: Physical Development. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults 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

Gross Motor Skills ELG

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.

Implementation

  • Two lessons of high-quality physical education teaching a week. One which is gym and dance focussed and the other which is focussed on team games.
  • Utilise a highly skilled PE specialist to provide a high quality, knowledge rich physical education which is carefully sequenced to ensure children are always building on their knowledge.
  • A broad and knowledge-rich PE curriculum that develops the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing competence and confidence in a range of physical activities.
  • Our PE curriculum is designed to provide positive sporting experiences with activities designed to be enjoyable, purposeful, vigorous and regular.
  • Every child engages in competitive sport, every school year through our sports day.
  • Children develop a lifelong interest in physical activity, as well as developing positive attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle.
  • A clear progression of skills and knowledge evident throughout the school.
  • Develops social skills especially team work.
  • Develops strength, mobility and physical endurance.
  • All children experience success of personal challenges in sport.
  • There are opportunities to take part in extra-curricular sports clubs.
  • The Physical Education curriculum is designed to be challenging, appropriate to each pupil’s stage of development.

In Foundation Stage

  • The children have 2 sessions of PE a week one that is dance or gym based and the other with a specialist PE coach who does ball and team games with the children.
  • Providing time and space to enjoy energetic play daily
  • Practising movement skills through games with beanbags, cones, balls and hoops
  • Planning activities where children can practise moving in different ways and at different speeds, balancing, target throwing, rolling, kicking and catching
  • Providing activities that give children the opportunity and motivation to practise manipulative skills, e.g. cooking, painting, clay and playing instruments
  • Providing a range of left-handed tools especially left-handed scissors, as needed; support children with physical difficulties with, and triangular or thicker writing tools
  • Providing a range of construction toys of different sizes, made of wood, rubber or plastic, that fix together in a variety of ways, e.g. by twisting, pushing, slotting or magnetism.

Disciplinary knowledge in PE comes through opportunities for the children to choose and apply their own actions, balances, movements and skills. Once they have mastered the specific skills, they have opportunities to apply these within sports and games and therefore have to choose different strategies and the best way to approach different challenges.

As they move through school, their skills and knowledge around tactics become more complex and they have to work collaboratively to make decisions. There are lots of opportunities for the children to evaluate their performances and reflect on how they will improve next time.

Inclusion

Inclusion in physical education means that all children have access to and are given confidence in all areas of the curriculum. We aim to create an environment in which all children learn to respect and value each other’s differences. This is achieved by employing the following strategies:

  • Mixing groups in terms of gender and ability.
  • Structuring activities so all are fully involved e.g. all team members needing to touch the ball before a goal is scored.
  • Giving all the children an opportunity to share their work.
  • Considering the needs of children with physical or learning difficulties and taking the necessary steps (by enlisting extra help, adapting equipment or differentiating tasks) to ensure they have equal access to the curriculum.
  • Recognising the dangers of stereotyping. For example, expecting dynamic work from boys in gymnastics and neat and controlled work from girls.
  • Recognising the need to extend more able pupils and, if necessary, referring them to the subject leader and gifted and talented co-ordinator. They may then be further extended.

Impact

Teachers observe PE lessons and make note of achievement against the national curriculum. Each unit of work begins by ascertaining the children’s prior knowledge and any connected knowledge and skills held or observed in their long-term memory. Any misconceptions that arise throughout the unit are identified and addressed appropriately. Children continue to recall their knowledge and develop their skills throughout a unit in order to ensure an alteration in long term memory. In Foundation stage the children are assessed against the Early Learning Goal for Physical Development.

All the children in the school also complete a PE survey once a year. As a result, we know that our PE curriculum ensure our pupils enjoy being active, keeping healthy and participating in physical education.