Physical Education

At Hook Junior School we provide opportunities for children to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect. Our children have a secure understanding of the benefits of leading healthy lifestyles. At Hook children are able to know more and remember more about the importance of healthy lifestyles. They progress well throughout each year group and meet the NC objectives. They are eager to attend after school clubs and competitive sports events with even the least confident children keen to attend.

The national curriculum for PE aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • use running, jumping, throwing and catching in isolation and in combination
  • play competitive games, modified where appropriate [for example, badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders and tennis], and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending
  • develop flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance [for example, through athletics and gymnastics]
  • perform dances using a range of movement patterns
  • take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team
  • compare their performances with previous ones and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.

Swimming and water safety

All schools must provide swimming instruction either in key stage 1 or key stage 2. In particular, pupils should be taught to:

  • swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
  • use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke]
  • perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

At Hook Junior School, we teach to the National Curriculum expectations, but also aim for children to leave with the knowledge of how to live and maintain a healthy lifestyle. We aim for all children to enjoy and participate in sport and all children to participate competitively within school against their peers and some children to compete in school teams against other schools.

We want children to recognise that there are a variety of sports available to them, with many ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Children may develop a preference for one sport over another, however through a broad PE curriculum, we ensure children develop their passion whilst also enjoying new sports and activities. It is important for children to recognise that skills are transferrable across different sports and activities; we support children to recognise these links and transfer their skills through a carefully designed curriculum overview and progression of skills. Links are discussed within lessons to support children’s understanding and the acquisition of new skills.

We want all children to feel success within PE lessons and beyond, therefore teachers encourage children to pursue any sport which they enjoy, as well as to try something new. A range of clubs are available for children through extra-curricular activities which all children are encouraged to attend. Class teachers also promote children to join local clubs outside of school to support them to continue to foster their talents and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

We aim for children to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement, with increased difficulty as they progress through the school. In addition to the development of physical skills, we recognise the importance of children continuing to learn how to effectively communicate, collaborate and compete with each other. Developing an understanding and ability to reflect and evaluate their physical activity and skills is an important part of our PE curriculum to develop self-improvement, lifelong learning and a love for physical activity.

We view swimming not only as an enjoyable sporting activity, but a life skill for all pupils. Consequently, we ensure that all children are able to attend swimming whilst at school to attain the National Curriculum requirement to swim 25 metres independently.

We aim for PE to be taught for an hour a week with an extra exercise in the form of ‘Golden Mile’ four times a week. Gymnastics and dance units are taught in blocks each term in order to build up the children’s skills and the opportunity to evaluate and improve their own performances.

Implementation

We encourage children to acknowledge that some sports require team participation whilst others are individual sports. Children are supported in lessons to develop their ability to work as a team and are provided with opportunities to work individually and within teams.

Children are taught regularly (one hour per week) by both teaching staff and Chelsea PE Foundation (a professional sports company) following the guidelines set by the National Curriculum. We offer a wide range of PE activities that allows children to be challenged and develop their skills across activities and sports. In all classes children have a wide range of physical ability. Whilst recognising this fact, we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child and in doing so raise pupil’s health, fitness levels, skills and resilience, teamwork and perseverance. In addition, an initiative we have adopted the ‘Golden Mile’ to encourage pupils to walk or run around the school and increase the amount of physical activity they participate in each day.

Sequences of lessons are planned for each PE unit allowing for progression and differentiation using the STEP (Space, Time, Equipment and pace ) model in order to support and also to extend children and to ensure that all pupils make progress. Our PE curriculum is further enhanced by participation in numerous sporting tournaments and after school clubs led by teachers and outside agencies.

Each term every class has a clearly planned gymnastics day and a dance day where their skills are built upon and they are given the opportunity to perform their routines to other members of the class. This is endure that pupils’ are given the opportunity to practise and build on previous skills as well as to evaluate their own performance, they can then immediately adapt their routine following the analysis and feedback.

Pupils in Year 4 attend weekly swimming lessons during the Spring Term. During the summer term, Sports Day provides the opportunity for children to practise and demonstrate athletic skills in their House Teams and compete against their year group peers on competitive running events. Our Sports Day is highly inclusive allowing for pupils of all abilities in PE to participate. During playtime we offer children the opportunity to use the trim trial to develop their upper body strength, flexibility and coordination.

PE Curriculum – how we measure impact

Assessments are undertaken termly against the progression of skills document. Teachers then use this to assess children in both gymnastic and dance and games which are recorded on OTrack. These are then analysed by the subject leader so that any weaknesses can be addressed the following term.

Monitoring takes what by the PE coordinator in the form of observations, the monitoring of plans and the analysis of videos taken during gym and dance days. Feedback is then given to teachers in order to improve the teaching of PE across the school.