PE at Wilshere-Dacre
Intent
At Wilshere-Dacre Junior Academy, we believe that physical education (PE), experienced in an inclusive environment, is essential to ensure children develop a love of sport and inspires them to lead an active and healthy lifestyle. We aim to ensure all of our children leave primary school with the passion, knowledge, skills and motivation necessary to equip them for lifelong participation in physical activity and competitive sport. Our objective to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, giving all children the opportunity to develop their physical competence and confidence. It is our vision that all children receive high-quality PE lessons, which enable them to succeed and achieve their full potential. Additionally, we aim to teach children how to cooperate and collaborate with others as part of an effective team, understanding fairness and equity of play to embed life-long values.
The aims of teaching PE in our school are:
• To develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• Children are physically active for sustained periods of time
• Children engage in competitive sports and activities
• All children lead healthy, active lives
• To develop social and communication skills and build effective relationships with peers
Implementation
PE at Wilshere-Dacre Junior Academy provides challenging and enjoyable learning through a range of sporting activities including invasion games, net & wall games, strike and field games, gymnastics, dance, swimming and outdoor & adventure. We aim to ensure that our PE lessons are engaging, allowing children time to discover, play and spend time on a task when learning a new skill, as well as being progressive in order to challenge every pupil to fulfil their unique potential.
Children participate in two high-quality PE lessons each week, covering two sporting disciplines every half term. Our long term plan sets out the PE units which are to be taught throughout the year and ensures that the requirements of the National Curriculum are fully met. Children also have swimming lessons in Years 3 – 5 to ensure all children are water confident to 25m by the time they leave the school. In addition, children are encouraged to participate in the varied range of extra-curricular activities. We also promote competitive sport and have a number of teams who compete locally throughout the year, which gives the children an opportunity to develop their communication and teamwork skills.
When planning PE, prior knowledge and skills covered are taken into account so that children are able to make connections with prior learning and to ensure there is clear progression across the school. Teachers cater for the varying needs of all learners, scaffolding activities when necessary and as appropriate, and ensuring an appropriate level of challenge.
We use a range of formative assessment tools and strategies within our PE curriculum and believe that self and peer assessment during lessons is most effective. Allowing children to reflect upon their own performance and solve problems for themselves is key to their independence and growth. Peer assessment provides children the opportunity to appraise one another and suggest constructive feedback for each other’s work.
Each year, a small group of Year 6 children are invited to become Sports Leaders for the school. They develop into sporting role models for the younger children, assisting with our annual Sports day and any other Sporting activities.
Impact
Our PE curriculum is inclusive and progressive and allows all children the opportunity to acquire and develop fundamental knowledge, understanding, skills and techniques and apply these to a wide variety of different sports and activities. PE lessons are fun, enjoyable and challenging and all children can achieve, to the best of their ability, in a supportive, safe and stimulating environment. Our pupils are physically active, and this has a positive impact on their learning in the classroom. Children understand how to lead a healthy lifestyle and understand the importance of regular exercise and activity for their physical and mental wellbeing. Children enjoy PE lessons and develop a love of sport and physical activity, which hopefully becomes part of their future life outside of primary school.