Physical Education (PE)

Intent

Our intent is to develop and support our pupils in gaining increasingly intelligent movement, and carefully prioritised knowledge, which they are able to competently and confidently apply to their physical education and beyond.

All opportunities contribute towards ensuring that all children: develop movement-related competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities, are physically active for sustained periods of time, understand the strategies, rules and tactics of different games, and lead healthy, active lives. We intend to increase pupils’ self-efficacy through steadily increasing knowledge and competence, and through the explicit teaching of knowledge that informs and directs their movements.

We know that physical education is not synonymous with either sport, or physical activity. As such, we use both these latter domains to contextualise a knowledge-rich approach to developing the three pillars of progression in PE: motor-competence, knowledge of rules, strategies and tactics, and 3) healthy participation. Fundamentally, we aspire for all pupils to enjoy PE, to develop a rich knowledge base that supports their further education, and to engage in sport and physical activity, alongside healthy competition, during their school years and beyond.

Implementation

We plan our teaching using the Merton PE lesson plans and integrate them into a knowledge-based framework, which provides a structured and progressive approach to delivering high quality PE lessons.

The schemes of work ensure that the pupils are given a wealth of opportunities to progress their motor competence, knowledge of rules and strategies, and knowledge of healthy participation over a carefully sequenced curriculum.

We carefully select the sports that form the focus of our PE units, teaching fewer sports but in greater depth, to support greater development of competency, confidence and knowledge. This approach also ensures that pupils can revisit and develop knowledge within specific contexts. Our PE lessons use sequential practice, progressing a range of movements which become increasingly sport specific over the curriculum.

All pupils are offered a wide and diverse range of extra curricular sporting activities before and after school, as well as at lunchtimes to further healthy participation in sport and physical activity, as well as a range of competitions.

Impact

As the pupils progress through their time at our school, and are fully immersed in the PE provision on offer, they deepen their understanding of physical education, build and revisit domain-specific knowledge, and recognise the importance of a physically active, healthy lifestyle.

The impact of our active model of specific practice means that most lesson time is spent in active learning and movement. Our focus on the three pillars of PE means that teachers assess children’s knowledge and application in PE using the concept of Head (declarative knowledge—knowing ‘what ‘), Hands (procedural knowledge—knowing ‘how’) and Heart (knowing how to participate actively, thoughtfully and healthily): as a result, feedback is targeted and specific. This model allows the accurate and timely assessment of knowledge and understanding across the three pillars, and to support children’s development through targeted sequential practice.