Mrs Hawkins and Miss Wiltshire

At Knowle CE Primary Academy, one of the ways in which our pupils are supported to experience ‘life in all its fullness’ is through participation in our Physical Education curriculum. Our curriculum aims to inspire a lifelong love and enjoyment of PE and competitive sport, leading to a healthy and active future for all. We enable pupils to become physically confident and healthy in both mind and body by providing a wealth of opportunities for all abilities. Whilst PE is celebrated as a competitive subject at Knowle, we emphasise it is not exclusive and we place teamwork, fairness, confidence, respect and enjoyment at the heart of our curriculum. We use ‘realPE’ to complement and support our planned PE provision. ‘RealPE’ is a unique, child- centred approach that engages and challenges every pupil. It focuses on the development of agility, balance and coordination, healthy competition and cooperative learning. Developing these fundamental skills enables our pupils to excel in a broad range of physical activities and to be physically active for sustained periods of time. We are also part of the South Solihull School Sports Partnership and the Arden Primary Competition Partnership which gives our pupils opportunities to engage in a range of competitive sporting activities from Year 1 to Year 6.

Our curriculum intent – the knowledge and skills we expect our pupils to learn – can be found in our Long Term Plans and Medium Term Plans (see below)

Our PE curriculum has been designed to create an environment that allows pupils to focus on learning and become competent in a range of physical skills. We, as a school, have ambitious intentions for our pupils and our coherently planned curriculum is sequenced towards the systematic teaching of fundamental movement skills to develop relative fluency and motor competence.

All pupils in Key Stages 1 & 2 receive at least two hours of high quality PE each week, predominantly taught by their class teachers, with EYFS having one designated PE session per week alongside continuous access to physical development opportunities within their provision. This ensures that our pupils meet the requirements of the EYFS and National Curriculum, and become competent in their fundamental movement skills throughout their education, thus enabling pupils to build on their prior experiences and apply these fluently and with confidence. Pupils have one realPE lesson each week, which is a skill based curriculum that challenges and supports every child, followed by one application lesson where they experience a variety of activities and games suitable to their key stage, providing opportunities for them to practise taught skills and receive feedback.

During lessons, teachers will identify what children know, remember and can do, and, where required, address any gaps with practice and purposeful instruction to secure strong foundations. Lessons are designed to promote ambitious learning with personalised outcomes.

We expect pupils to take an active role in their learning and promote this by self and peer assessment, giving pupils a voice during lessons and through Sports Council, and by providing personal best challenges. Pupils are encouraged to give feedback to others in order to become confident peer coaches.

Our teaching staff regularly receive Continued Professional Development (CPD) opportunities which ensures a consistent approach to PE lessons across the school, building skills and ensuring we work at pupils’ individual levels. Consistent teaching throughout their school life gives all children the best opportunity to participate and make progress in their physical development and be well equipped for more specialised activities.

Our sporting activities are carefully sequenced and chosen to enable our pupils to become competent in a number of sports, experiencing success and enjoyment in both intra and inter school competitions. Sports such as gymnastics, athletics and dance are revisited each year as their fundamental movement skills underpin many other sporting activities. Other sports are then chosen and revisited based on pupil interest, competition and access to sports specific coaches. Competition is positioned carefully within our teaching sequence to be purposeful and is viewed as an important and enjoyable aspect of our PE curriculum. We work closely with our local primary and secondary schools, as well as our School Sports Partnership, to give our pupils opportunities to develop their knowledge to perform and participate safely and effectively. Whilst we enjoy the competitive nature of sport, we have an inclusive approach and value the importance of our pupils’ physical and mental well-being.

It is important for us to equip our pupils with learning behaviours which are transferable across the curriculum and their school life. These take the form of the realPE ‘Multi-ability Cogs’: Personal Skills, Social Skills, Cognitive Skills, Physical Skills, Creative Skills and Knowledge of Health and Fitness. A ‘Cog’ is focused upon during each realPE unit and is revisited and developed throughout the key stages.

Pupils are encouraged to practise and apply skills outside of their curricular PE sessions. To achieve this, we run a full extra-curricular sports programme, including teacher run clubs and clubs run by local sports coaches and teachers. Our clubs are well attended and we are able to compete with local schools in a number of leagues, festivals and competitions. Through our full and varied school sports programme, our pupils are able to access pathways into higher levels of competition and specialised sports. To further promote healthy and active lifestyles, we train ‘Play Leaders’ to enable a selection of Year Six children to lead active games for younger children at lunchtimes. We also work with all staff to ensure movement breaks are incorporated into classroom based lessons.