PE Curriculum Statement
Curriculum Intent
At Humberstone Infant and Junior Academies, physical education, activity and competitive sport play a vital role in the education and development of our children. We strive to provide all pupils with many varied opportunities to develop their skills, knowledge and confidence through our inclusive curriculum and extensive list of extracurricular activities which is available to all pupils ranging from EYFS up to Year 6.
As a school, we equip pupils to be well-rounded, confident and competent learners in PE and this is embedded from the time they start EYFS, starting with our inclusive and purposeful EYFS provision. In lessons, we teach a variety of high quality traditional and less traditional sports in order to support the talents and interests of all our children. In our PE curriculum, we have thought carefully about where there are purposeful links across the curriculum that help children to build schema and make connections in their learning.
We also pride ourselves in providing the tools to enable children to develop their knowledge of sport, fitness and activity through a wide range of activities and competitions including basketball, netball, football, cross country, athletics, boccia, new age kurling, dance or gymnastics. We strive to ensure all children, including our most disadvantaged children and children with SEND participate in a festival, competition or an extra curricular activity by the time they leave their Key Stage.
We understand that for children to be well-rounded, confident and successful individuals, they should be given the opportunity to consistently reach their full potential and be challenged. We provide this through all forms of activity such as: encouraging active travel, having an active breakfast club led by an expert Sports Coach, ensuring our break times and lunchtimes are active through targeted activities led by sports specialists, through our EYFS curriculum for physical activity in our indoor and outdoor provision, through physical education lessons which allow pupils to develop a range of problem solving and team skills, and providing an array of after-school activities led by sports specialists. This allows children to reach the Chief Medical Officer’s target of children and young people engaging in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity for an average of at least 60 minutes per day.
Implementation
Throughout their time in EYFS, children are directly and indirectly taught a range of knowledge in order to improve their physical development and skills. This is provided throughout our rich and varied EYFS curriculum and directly taught in PE lessons. In our EYFS provision, children have meaningful opportunities to develop their fine and gross motor skills through a range of activities which include, but are not limited to, the use of scissors, tweezers, playdough and threading and getting changed for PE and building, balancing and travelling in different ways. Having recently invested in our outdoor provision, we provide opportunities for children to practise using a balance bike, throwing and catching using various objects, handle equipment and tools safely and with accuracy, experiment with different ways of moving and jumping off objects and landing appropriately and handling small apparatus safely and with increasing control.
In PE lessons, we aim to develop children’s core knowledge and skills during their time at school; including developing agility, balance and coordination, running, jumping and throwing and catching. This is further developed in KS1, where we teach the key fundamental knowledge of being a confident and skillful learner in PE lessons. Pupils receive two hours of PE every week and this is taught by our Sports Coach and the class teacher who follow The PE Hub scheme alongside using our own progression maps in order to teach the essential knowledge and vocabulary we expect children to be familiar with in each unit of work (units of work can be found at the bottom of this document). In their PE lessons, children will practise a range of skills and acquire the key knowledge in order to be a confident and competent learner. Once pupils have practised these skills, they are taught to apply them in a range of activities, including team games related to attacking and defending. This is then followed up and built on throughout their time in KS2.
In KS2, children continue to develop their knowledge and fundamental skills by participating in a range of different sports such as basketball, dodgeball, football, hockey, netball, rounders, cricket and orienteering. They start to understand ways to improve and develop by competing against others in team games and challenging themselves to achieve their personal best scores. Pupils are encouraged to become reflective learners and to track personal improvements and to develop the skills of being critical, creative, communicative and collaborative thinkers. We know that children will have different starting points but we ensure that they have good opportunities to reach similar ending points when they move on to their further education in secondary school.
Over both schools, we have developed a culture of PE and activity by providing active blasts, active break and lunchtimes, purposeful after school clubs, an active breakfast club, targeted sessions and a rich and varied PE curriculum. KS2 leadership training has allowed pupils to be confident in delivering games and activities on the KS1 playground and provides them with a sense of responsibility and ownership; something we are very proud of and hope they take with them in their further education and beyond. Our lessons have cross-curricular links, allowing pupils the opportunity to express themselves and continue to be active throughout the day. Throughout our curriculum, physical activity has been a focus in certain projects and children have achieved high quality outcomes. For example, pupils in KS2 have designed healthy alternatives for packed lunches and pupils have had the opportunity to participate in their own exercise videos. They have been provided with the tools to develop skills, knowledge and understanding of how to be fitter, stronger and healthier individuals. Our PSHE curriculum allows pupils to understand the importance of being physically healthy and active through engaging lessons and child-led learning with particular focus on healthier lunches and leading a healthy lifestyle.
Impact
Monitoring across the schools shows that pupils are being taught a wide range of activities, knowledge and skills throughout their PE lessons and within their provision. Pupil questionnaires demonstrate that they remember the subject knowledge taught in PE topics and they show a love of learning in PE lessons.
Observations undertaken in our EYFS stage demonstrate there is a vast array of physical activities that are provided in our continuous provision that increase physical development in all pupils. Additionally, PE observations show that pupils are engaged and confident in trying new things and succeeding, as well as confidently assessing each other and offering critique. Additionally, PE lessons are exciting, engaging and purposeful.
Our broad range of topics taught during PE lessons allows pupils to take part in sports they haven’t participated in before, providing them with the tools to try new things head on and not shy away from challenges. Our orienteering block of work has been hugely successful and pupils have shown that they thoroughly enjoy the problem solving activities whilst learning key map and investigative knowledge skills.
Staff have been provided with strategically planned CPL where they have had purposeful opportunities to shadow subject experts. As a result, they are confident and skilled to teach the knowledge and skills needed for the PE Curriculum. Questionnaires and observations have helped identify where staff need more support with PE and this is ongoing throughout the year. We have many professionals and external agencies to help with delivering high quality PE lessons with the focus that staff learn from these professionals and develop their own subject knowledge or CPD.
Close monitoring of our extra curricular opportunities has identified that more children than ever before are accessing a competition, festival or after school club, particularly those who are disadvantaged or have SEND. Over the years, the number of all pupils participating in festivals and competitions has increased which has had a huge benefit on pupil’s confidence and skills. In relation to competitions, our pupils have been very successful and have shown and demonstrated our school values; creativity, resilience, positivity, respect and excellence. The pupils enjoy representing the school at competitions and it gives them a sense of achievement. We are extremely proud of their achievements to date, including but not limited to: Playing football at the King Power Stadium on numerous occasions after reaching the football finals (girls football league came 2nd and boys football league came 1st), winning the Leicester City Schools Boccia Competition, achieving second place in the Leicester City Schools Dodgeball Competition, achieving third place in the Sportshall Athletics Competition, achieving high scores and finishing in top places in the Cross Country Competition, including 1st, 2nd and 3rd place on various occasion as well as coming fifth during the New Age Kurling Competition.
Monitoring shows that across the school, pupils are more active, particularly during break and lunchtimes and the impact of KS2 playground leaders providing EYFS and KS1 pupils with new games and activities has contributed to this. KS2 pupils have enjoyed the responsibility of leading activities on the KS1 playground whilst conversations and pupil questionnaires demonstrate that pupils enjoy PE and foster a love of learning towards the subject. Our achievement of being rewarded with Gold Sports Mark proves our commitment and passion of providing pupils with a rich and varied curriculum of PE, activity and sport.
Furthermore, we recognise that whilst children make good progress during PE lessons and are frequently building on prior knowledge, there are pupils that find it harder to do so. Because of this, we have implemented targeted activities which are designed to develop and improve pupil’s learning. Targeted interventions aimed at encouraging girls participation has shown that girls are more inclined to participate in activities and sports such as ‘Dodgeball, Archery, or Tri-Golf’ due to partaking in a WHISPA group. Girls are more confident in their ability and we have noticed an increase in how they participate in PE lessons. Similarly, providing fantastic opportunities and engaging stimuli through Dance lessons has seen an increase in the boys participating effectively and confidently in Dance lessons. In KS1, the ‘Sparks’ group activities helped pupils to stay on task for longer during lessons whilst also providing targeted children with opportunities to help them focus on fundamental skills and movements. Balance bikes in EYFS have helped pupils improve their core skills whilst also improving their balance, confidence and above all, their awareness of using bikes. Riding a bike is built upon in KS2, when Year 5 pupils have demonstrated their ability to ride a bike safely whilst riding on the road. The bikeability course increased the amount of pupils riding to school and this is something we are continuing to encourage. Whilst providing activities and clubs to targeted or least active pupils, we are aware that there are pupils that show they are gifted or talented in certain areas of PE. Due to this, we aim to make sure these pupils attend appropriate competitions and in recent years we have competed in competitive athletics, cross country, football, gymnastics, new age kurling, boccia and swimming galas. At Humberstone, we feel as though our inclusive range of PE and Sports on offer is always improving and we are proud of the education and sports we deliver.
Our PE curriculum covers a wide range of topics over the year and each topic builds upon prior knowledge the pupils have learnt. Our curriculum follows the following sequence:
