Aims
“Health is one of the most valuable gifts desired by all”
– Pope Francis
Intent
Curriculum
At St Oswald’s, our PE curriculum is designed to give pupils the opportunity to make physical exercise a daily part of their lives. We aim to achieve this by allowing them to access high-quality education which inspires them to explore, succeed and excel in both competitive sports and other physically demanding activities.
At St Oswald’s, we aim to develop our children’s understanding of the importance of leading healthy, active lives. We want our children to understand the benefits that leading a healthy, active lifestyle has for our mental health and well-being. We believe that it is important to cater to the needs of individual pupils by providing a balance of individual, team, cooperative and competitive activities that suit the needs and abilities of our children.
We aim to provide children with opportunities to become physically confident and manage themselves successfully in a variety of situations. In addition to providing high-quality teaching of physical development, it is also our intent to help pupils build character and develop a sense of key values including fair play, respect, and sportsmanship. We strive for our children to be the best that they can be.
Competition
We believe that competition gives children an opportunity to develop themselves further in a range of environments. Whether that be competing against themselves, competing against others in a recognised environment (eg: PE lessons), or against unknown opponents in inter-school competitions. We strongly believe that increased exposure to competition will allow pupils to better develop their relationship with physical health and its ability to build traits such as cooperation, self-belief, passion, determination, pride, competitiveness, respect, honesty, and teamwork.
Extracurricular
As a school, we strive to provide a range of extracurricular opportunities to children of all abilities within and outside school hours. This allows pupils to develop themselves as a whole person, build a sound knowledge of basic skills and build a positive relationship with physical health.
Implementation
Curriculum
Children are provided with a minimum of 1 hour EYFS or 2 hours (KS1/KS2) of timetabled lessons each week.
We use the Real PE scheme to deliver high-quality PE lessons for one of the two hours a week. This scheme is designed to allow the children to learn the basic fundamentals of PE. Alongside Real PE we use a variety of schemes to apply these skills to the other areas of PE such as Real Gymnastics and Dance, as well as schemes for field games, invasion games, net games, and swimming.
At St Oswald’s, teachers are supported at different points in the year by our professional Sports Coach ‘Matty’ from Progressive Sports. Our hall and outdoor space and apparatus are timetabled in order to give each class an opportunity to access PE lessons. We will make links to the School Games Values where appropriate in order to enhance children’s understanding of the values associated with physical health and sport. We have a curriculum map to support the planning of sessions and to view the overall journey for children in PE throughout the year.
We believe that it is important for our children to be provided with opportunities by specialist providers to ensure they receive the best possible PE education at St Oswald’s. We ensure that our children are provided with opportunities to work with outside agencies to develop their sporting abilities and engagement within the subject.
Competition
Children are exposed to competitions during PE lessons through structured games and activities that cement their learning. Children will also be provided with the opportunity to represent the school through inter-school competitions where they leave school to compete against other schools and children. We are part of the Warrington School Sports Partnership and access their competition calendar. Our PE Coordinator regularly seeks opportunities to engage with different events throughout the year.
Extracurricular
After-school sports clubs are run by our Sports Coaches as well as our Teachers and Teaching Assistants. They give children opportunities to develop their physical fitness as well as broaden their understanding of the theory around keeping fit and healthy. Clubs can vary, depending on the interests of our children, and are delivered to EYFS/KS1 (mixed), LKS2 (mixed), and UKS2 (mixed). Clubs were restricted last academic year due to the pandemic but we are delighted that our clubs have been able to start again this academic year for the children.
60 Active Minutes
At St Oswald’s we strive to ensure that each child in our school is physically active for 60 minutes each day. We aim to achieve this through scheduled PE lessons on some days, the use of the Daily Mile track once per day as a class, as well as the opportunity to use it during lunch and break times. Teachers include regular physical brain breaks during lessons where the children can be active. Our Midday assistants recently were trained in active play and are now implementing this at lunchtimes, specifically targeting the less active children. Investment in our outdoor equipment and large apparatus has increased children’s activity during breaks and at times between lessons. Teachers look to use a variety of physical learning opportunities throughout their learning both inside the classroom and outside in our extensive outdoor space and outdoor classroom. This determination to engage all children in sporting activities, increase their levels of fitness, help to reduce obesity levels, and help children to develop greater resilience and determination.
Impact
Curriculum
Within each PE lesson, children are assessed formatively against the National Curriculum objectives and skills that are being taught in that session. During our Real PE lessons, there are four levels of social and physical skills that the teachers are assessing against, following ‘All, Most, Some and Few’ model. Evidence of children’s learning is recorded through photographs. At the start of each term, assessments are completed so that we are aware of where the children are at with their learning. These are then shared with the PE lead and discussions take place to discuss ways to support those who are not performing to the expected standard for their year group. We intend for pupils to have an increased understanding of our objectives and feel that they have made progress in those areas. Through Pupil and Staff voice at different points of the year, we are able to see the impact that PE lessons are having on our children and staff, as well as developing a set of next steps to know how to develop teaching.
Competition
The most important impact for our pupils regarding competition is that they get to enjoy and challenge themselves. We measure this by listening to pupil and teacher feedback, paying close attention to pupil’s attitudes to competition throughout the year. At St Oswald’s we are very proud of our achievements within inter-school competitions and we also look at the results of the competitions that we attend and look to improve our results (both scores and relationships with events) throughout the year.
Extracurricular
The majority of our after-school clubs are run by Teachers and Teaching Assistants, although there are some that are run by highly trained professionals. When running clubs our Teachers and Teaching Assistants use formative assessment to ensure that high-quality provision is provided for all. Outside providers use their own internal assessment. We will listen to pupil and Teacher feedback about clubs throughout the year and ensure that we use this feedback to provide the most suitable clubs for our children. We ensure that after-school sports clubs are monitored as this helps us to know that we are offering the best clubs that are being enjoyed by the children.
School Games Mark
We were delighted in 2018-2019 to receive the School Games Mark Bronze Award. We were working hard in the 2019-2020 academic year to achieve the Silver and Gold Mark. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the School Games Mark was frozen and schools were re-awarded their most recent achievement and so we continue to hold the Bronze Award. Our school continued to engage our pupils with sports and competition at home during the lockdown periods and in recognition of our work and pupil engagement, we were awarded the School Games Virtual Award 2019/20.