Physical Education

Park, we have a strong emphasis on acquiring basic skills at the earliest opportunity. We then allow the children to develop these skills further as they go through school in a wide variety of sports. All our P.E. lessons follow the Lancashire scheme of work and are designed to be inclusive through meeting every child’s individual needs and ensure that every child makes expected progress. 

Our aim as a school is to ensure that every child makes significant progress as they go through school and we ensure this through the use of our specialist sports coach, coaches from the Pendle Sports Partnership to increase staff competence and through on-going assessment, which is evaluated half termly, to inform future curriculum coverage. In line with the new curriculum, our P.E. lessons are also designed to keep the children as active as possible to ensure that every child involved feels the benefits in terms of their health, as well as acquiring new skills. This is now also supplemented by bi-weekly PE. This takes place in every class across school and is part of our mission to encourage healthy and active lifestyles for all of our children.

Aims and purpose of P.E.

All children receive two hours of P.E. a week which has the following results:

• Acquire skills that are transferable across a wide variety of sports;
• Develop and explore physical skills with increasing control and coordination;
• Develop confidence and competence in performing different skills;
• Develop positive attitudes to physical activity;
• Improve social and interpersonal skills;
• Appreciate the efforts of others, as well as their own;
• Respond positively to different challenges
• Persevere and make sustained efforts to develop and improve their own performance;
• Pursue habits and interests that promote a healthy lifestyle;
• Become increasingly aware of how physical activity affects their body.

Planning, Teaching and Assessment

We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in P.E. lessons. Our principal aim is to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding and we do this through a mixture of whole class teaching and individual/group activities. Teachers model what is expected of the children or use individuals/groups of children to model skills to the rest of the class. The children are then encouraged to work collaboratively and master the new skill. This acquisition is helped through feedback from the teacher/ teaching assistant or from feedback from other pupils. 

Once skills have been mastered by the children, they are then afforded the opportunity to put them into practice in competitive game scenarios. This competitive nature of sport is encouraged. We believe that children, as in life, must strive to succeed but must also learn to accept defeat and learn lessons from it. The competitive nature of sport is encouraged further in the wide variety of after school sports clubs we offer and through competition with other schools as part of the school sports partnership.

Teachers assess children’s learning in P.E. as they observe them during lessons. They record the progress made by children against the learning objectives for their lessons. At the end of a unit of work, teachers make a judgement as to whether the child has met, exceeded or is working towards the expectations of each individual unit. This is then used to inform future planning and help each child to make at least expected progress in P.E throughout that year.

Inclusion and Equal Opportunities

All children at Park Primary School are entitled to participate in the P.E. curriculum regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion and special educational needs.  At Park Primary, we feel that it is essential that all children’s efforts are valued and supported in a safe and secure environment. Where children have specific sensory and physical needs, adaptations to the curriculum may be necessary to ensure that children have every opportunity to succeed at their particular stage of development (see S.E.N Policy).

As part of the Pendle School Sports Partnership, we also compete in a variety of S.E.N. sports competitions with the emphasis being on inclusiveness but also being competitive.  

P.E. in the Foundation Stage

At Park, we believe that young children learn through using all their senses through being active and interactive. Physical Development is one of six areas in the Foundation Stage Curriculum. Activities are planned specifically to ensure a safe, well-resourced environment, which helps them to build on and develop their confidence and independence. Children are given time to explore, experiment and refine their social, interpersonal skills as well as gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Staff provide children with a balance of opportunities for all round physical development. This is achieved through use of indoor and outdoor play, use of the small hall, playground and field. A range of equipment, apparatus and stimuli is employed to encourage the development of specific skills.

P.E. in Key Stage 1

Children continue to build on their early experiences and move into paired and group activities. They begin to play simple games, explore and link actions, improve coordination and response to stimuli. They develop greater awareness of others and begin to develop their own ideas and creativity. Children improve their use of apparatus and equipment and continue to develop gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination. They learn to refine skills in throwing, catching and kicking balls and working cooperatively. They continue to develop coordination, balance and achieve greater control over their movements. They develop their visual and auditory awareness and begin to express themselves through movement and communicate ideas and feelings about their performance.

P.E. in Key Stage 2

As children move into Key Stage two, we try to build on the skills they have acquired in Key Stage one and get children to recognise that these skills are transferable across a wide variety of sports. Children begin to take more ownership of their learning and use feedback from staff, peers and themselves to evaluate and improve performance. The children are encouraged to be more competitive and learn to be gracious winners but also accept defeat and be resilient.

Jewellery in PE

For P.E. all watches and stud earrings should be removed.

Staff are not to remove or replace stud earrings – any child unable to do this will have limited involvement in PE that day. Children with piercings that are healing can send their chilkd in with tape/plasters until fully healed in which they will then need to be removed before school. 

No item of jewellery at all is allowed to be worn during swimming. Should a child be unable to take out their stud earrings they will not be allowed to take part in the swimming lesson depending on the swimming provider’s policy.

PE Kit