Witheridge CofE Academy Vision for Physical Education

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, but it is also the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.

                                                                                                        John F. Kennedy

Vision

All pupils leave TEAM Academy physically literate and with the knowledge, skills, motivation and perseverance necessary to equip them for a healthy lifestyle and lifelong participation in physical activity and sport.

Intent

 In physical education, we provide a range of activities designed to maximise enjoyment for all children. They should be taught to improve their physical and mental skills within a range of sports and games with the opportunity to develop their perseverance, curiosity, thinking and teamwork.  We have organised our curriculum to ensure that the children achieve the following by the end of Key Stage 2:

 

• to apply and develop a broad range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement.
• to enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other.
• to develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.
• to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres

Implementation

PE is taught by competent staff who deliver high quality lessons for children of all abilities. We aim to share PE teaching resources across the trust to reduce teacher workload and ensure high quality teaching in PE. Every child in the school has a minimum of two hours of PE each week. Within our PE curriculum we offer the children swimming at the Mid Devon Leisure Centre, forest school sessions and a wide range of sports and activities to broaden our children’s sporting opportunities.

At Witheridge Primary Academy we seek to build on the fundamental movement skills learnt in the EYFS by introducing the children to sports-related activities listed in the National Curriculum. We aim to ensure our children are not at a disadvantage when engaging in the PE curriculum as a result of our location in a rural setting. Instead, we aim to use our rural location to our advantage in order to provide our children with the opportunity to experience as many as 15 different sports on their journey from EYFS to Year 6. The PE long term plan is delivered over a 2 year rolling programme to accommodate the wide range of opportunities on offer to our mixed age classes. Within the long term plan, we continue to work in line with the school’s thematic approach to learning wherever possible.

Along with our curriculum aims we also seek to ensure that we:

• Put in place a sustainable programme of extra-curricula opportunities covering a broad range of activities.
• Use our rural location to offer all children the opportunity to participate in active forest school lessons with our trained forest school leader.
• Actively teach how our School Values and topic knowledge can be applied in each lesson or activity.
• Train Play Leaders and Peer Mediators to teach and inspire children to be active during play and lunchtimes, creating a fun and engaging environment.
• Provide opportunities for all pupils to participate in competitive activities, through intra-and inter-school competitions and events.
• Encourage children to take responsibility for their own learning through Head, Heart, Hands and STTEP.
• Provide the children with an opportunity to participate in the Daily Mile to boost physical engagement throughout the week.

Impact

Through a rich and stimulating PE curriculum from Reception to Year 6, children participate in and understand the importance to have regular physical activity. Children are supported through competitive and non-competitive sport and games to develop their perseverance, curiosity, thinking and working well together skills, supporting them in facing challenges in life in a positive manner.

We measure the impact of our curriculum by ensuring our teachers:

• Put in place a sustainable programme of extra-curricula opportunities covering a broad range of activities.
• Continually develop their practice through yearly CPD training
• Highlight their planning and update half termly their assessment documents to demonstrate the children's progress against the learning intentions set.
• Provide regular verbal feedback within lessons to encourage and ensure children apply the correct technique.
• Use of video analysis use at least once through a teaching sequence to encourage children to apply correct technique and evaluation.
• Teach the pupils how to self-assess their own learning and support their peers in order to improve and excel. 
• Understand the impact of physical activity on their own body (linked to Cornerstones Curriculum science topics).
• Help to increase the wide range of subject-specific vocabulary that the children are using.
• Through the Physical Education Action Plan, TEAM Multi-Academy Trust meetings and North Devon Schools sports meetings reviews can be made to explore the impact of any improvement initiatives.
• Measurable impact of swimming through percentage of pupils who are able to swim over 25m.