P.E at Knowle
At Knowle, the aim of PE is to inspire our children to love living a balanced, active, and healthy lifestyle. We want our children to develop a deep knowledge of the subject along with a range of skills, enabling them to sustain and enjoy a positive, active lifestyle.
Through teaching these concepts, we aim for all children at Knowle to develop a broad and balanced range of skills and a love of being active!
The National Curriculum for PE aims to ensure that all pupils:
• Develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• Are physically active for sustained periods of time
• Engage in competitive sports and activities
• Lead healthy, active lives.
All children at Knowle benefit from a broad, deep and progressive PE curriculum using the LAT (Learning Academies Trust) long term plan to guide our short-term planning. It has been devised by our team of PE leads across the Trust to ensure breadth of knowledge and expertise whilst covering all National Curriculum objectives. For each unit there are a series of ‘I can’ progression statements that guide a unit of work.
At Knowle, all pupils participate in 2 hours of high-quality PE in a week. In the Early Years, our children will start to develop the fundamentals of movement whilst participating in lessons with a theme which mirrors their classroom topic or PE unit of work. This enables the children to develop their physical literacy whilst embedding the learning achieved in the classroom. They will also develop their fine and gross motor skills while being able to hold different objects and manipulate different sized objects. In KS1, the Physical Education curriculum changes to an activity specific focus.
Children learn how the body changes during exercise whilst further developing the fundamentals of movement (Jog, Sprint, Jump, Hop, Weight on Hands, Balance & Coordination). The children follow the REAL PE scheme of work. In KS2 children develop the key concepts through a variety of ‘vehicles’, by building upon the skills taught in KS1. Across KS2, children play competitive games, modified where appropriate [for example, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders, and tennis], PE Rationale and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending. They then show their knowledge by photos, videos and using the concept model that Real P.E follows.
In KS2 Children take part in swimming in year 6 at the Plymouth Life Centre where they are taught by swimming teachers to swim competently, confidently, and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.
We place high importance on the PE curriculum and provision at Knowle and are very proud of our connections with the local primary schools and Plymouth Schools Sports Partnership, who provide us with opportunities to take part in competitive sporting events throughout the academic year.
To complement our PE lessons, we value the importance of offering a wide range of extra-curricular clubs. This enables the children at Knowle to develop their knowledge, understanding and performance in PE through activities such as Football, Netball, Tag Rugby, Cross Country Running, Dance, Rounders, Cricket, Athletics, Multi-Skills and many more. We then build in regular opportunities for children to take part in competitive fixtures with local schools so that we can again further their opportunities to take part in wider curricular events.
Children at Knowle develop a broad range of skills in a variety of activities as well as a deep understanding of how the human body works. We aim to raise the importance of exercise and hopefully enable each child to find at least one form of physical activity that they love and will pursue for the rest of their life. For every unit in PE, we draw upon the 6 cogs (physical, social, cognitive, health and fitness, personal and creative) which are then interlinked to support and develop learning and understanding. The rational being, that if each of these 6 skills is developed in relation to each other, then each will support the other and develop the whole leaner.
Teachers use assessment for learning to allocate children into a gold, silver and bronze model which remains fluid so that, depending on each child’s success and confidence in a sport, as well as considering skills such as leadership, respectfulness and understanding of the rules, they can be supported to progress accordingly. We are also using a trivium-based approach to assess the children’s knowledge and skill in Games, Dance, Gym, Athletics and OAA.
Through teacher observation, videos and talking to children, we assess if they have met each stage (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric). This can then be shared with the children and enables teachers to see where they can help a child to improve in the next unit of work and ensures they know more, understand more, and can do more.
With regard to swimming, we would expect children to meet baseline government expectations, which is to swim at least 25 metres, use a range of strokes effectively and perform safe self-rescue.
Sport in Action: