Physical Education

 Curriculum Intent

At St James’ Blackburn Church of England Primary School we are athletes! We want our children to love physical education and sport, knowing that if they enjoy PE they can grow up wanting to become gold medal winners, sports journalists, nutritionists and personal trainers. The PE curriculum has been designed so that pupils have the opportunity try a range of sports and develop their skills in a progressive manner. We want them to remember their PE lessons in school and embrace opportunities that they are presented with. We enrich their time in school with unforgettable experiences and provide opportunities that would normally be out of reach. For example: residential and day trips to experience Outdoor and Adventurous activities. We firmly believe that it is not just about what happens in the classroom and that memorable experiences are important to inspire our children. 

The curriculum promotes the children to become resilient and independent, whilst working as a team participating in sporting activities. We want to equip them with not only the minimum statutory requirements of the physical education National Curriculum but to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. For example; through learning problem solving skills in orienteering and being able to work as part of a team in our games units, children are able to apply these skills in wider-world contexts. 

We want our pupils to use the local area and be inspired by local athletes to learn about other cultures, respect diversity and each other’s talents and gifts. We want the pupils to go on in later life with a love of being physically active and know the benefits of exercise on their health and mental wellbeing. We recognise the difference between Physical Education and Physical activity. We want children to understand that there is more to PE than just being active.  Our goal is for children to build an arsenal of knowledge and skills to become physically literate) but try to incorporate both in the life of a pupil at St James.’ Extra-curricular clubs support learning from PE lessons, provide wider sporting opportunities e.g. archery and lacrosse and develop their skills further as well as providing competitive opportunities against others.

We believe that every pupil should experience a range of sports to enable them to make well-informed decisions about staying active in the future and give them skills in a variety of areas so that children can develop their love for physical activity. 

Curriculum Implementation

The PE curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment milestones for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. For example, we focus our teaching around the main strands of physical education; dance, gymnastics, games, OAA, athletics and swimming. These are revisited year on year where pupils progressively build their skills and knowledge. In addition to this we provide specialist swimming teaching to pupils in Year 4 and Year 5. 

We encourage staff to deliver at least an hourly PE lesson a week with a new topic explored each half term. We understand that a love of PE comes from the staff delivering the lesson so ensure staff are a good role model, ensuring they are correctly dressed for PE and have the in-depth knowledge and skills needs to teach PE. CPD for staff is an important part of this. 

Year group curriculum overviews provide staff the organisation of PE topics across the year taking into account progression and the logistics of resources and the weather! Scheme of work have been created for each topic that highlight the objectives for each lesson, providing engaging activities and resources which will be used to achieve them. However, staff are empowered to develop their planning as they are best placed to know the interest and needs of the children in their classes.  The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects. They link prior knowledge to new learning to deepen children’s learning. For example, Year 5 learn how to swing dance which links with their music topic. 

Key learning and vocabulary used in a topic are supported by Sticky knowledge organisers to ensure that all learners can access the curriculum and understand the key knowledge and learning to be retained. We firmly believe that pupils should be actively involved in their learning for example, filming and evaluating previous performances using technology.

We measure the impact of our curriculum by assessing termly topics with both a formative and summative approach. These assessments are collected frequently and analysed as part of the monitoring cycle which informs future planning and provision is adapted accordingly. This allows us to provide the best possible support for all children and provides us with an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the quality of education in PE. Additional assessment tools include Prior Learning quizzes, End of Unit quizzes, Staff and Pupil Voice, video recordings of skills. 

Curriculum Impact

By providing a PE curriculum that ensures progression and repetition, pupils will develop the skills and knowledge needed to meet the end of key stage expectations. Pupils should leave St James’ with a keen interest in PE, with a willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson, displaying positive attitudes and the ability to make informed choices about engaging in extra-curricular sports. They are resilient when faced with new challenges and work as a part of a team, knowing how to improve their own and other’s performances, with the ability to work independently. They should feel inspired from their PE lessons and have a willingness to practice new skills in a range of different activities and situations. Pupils will have the ability to swim at least 25m and know how to remain safe in and around water. Pupils have exceptional levels of originality, imagination, and creativity in their techniques, tactics and choreography. Pupils will have a knowledge of local athletes having learned about other cultures, respecting diversity, and recognising and celebrating each other’s talents and gifts. Pupils go on in later life with a love of being physically active and know the benefits of exercise on their health and mental wellbeing. 

Engaging Learning Opportunities 

On Tuesday 18th October 2022, the children of St James' Primary school took part in a basketball challenge. Each class was in competition with the other classes in their Key Stage groups to see how many hoops they could score in a certain amount of time.

We chose to do basketball this year as the children had voiced their interest in the sport during our pupil conferencing about PE. We can certainly say this was a hit as the children really enjoyed the session and got onto the competitive spirit. Walking around the school, you could see a smile on everyone's faces.

The winners of the competitions from each phase are:

I would finally like to thank all the parents/guardians that sent in donations. This will really go a long way to help our school funds. We are extremely grateful for all your support. A big thank you to Mr Grogan for organising this event!

Last year pupils from Years 1-6 participated in an ELO day for PE and the choice was Golf! Many pupils hadn't experienced playing Golf before and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So much so that we are hoping pupils will take up the sport in the future! A big thank you to Mr Jeffrey for organising this experience day.