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Curriculum Intent
At Usworth Colliery, we believe that Physical Education (PE), experienced in a safe and supportive environment, is essential to ensure our children obtain optimum physical and emotional development and good health, to lead a life-long healthy lifestyle. We intend to deliver inclusive, challenging and supportive high-quality teaching and learning opportunities that inspire all our children to develop their individual basic fundamental skills and succeed at their own pace, needs and strength to use, adapt and develop transferable, life-long physical skills and knowledge. We want to teach our children skills to keep them safe and be resilient, to use learnt behaviours in a social context, such as learning to swim and being part of a team and aspire to build on their love of sport through extra-curricular activities and potential career paths. We want to teach them how to cooperate and collaborate with others to celebrate their achievements and understand the importance of taking part, in the fairness of play and instil excellent sporting attitudes. Our curriculum aims to improve, not only the physical but also the mental well-being of all our children at Usworth Colliery, not only through the sporting skills taught, but through the underpinning values and disciplines which PE promotes.
PE/Sports
The children are taught gymnastics, athletics, games, dance and outdoor activities. They develop personal competence, and an appreciation of skilful and creative performance across these areas, which equip them with the experience in physical activity, which is hoped will continue throughout life.
The school believes that physical education, experienced in a safe and supportive environment, is a unique and vital contributor to a pupil’s physical development and well-being. A broad and balanced physical education curriculum and extra-curriculum is intended to provide for pupils’ increased self-confidence in their ability to manage themselves and their bodies within a variety of movement situations.
Progressive learning objectives, combined with sympathetic and varied learning approaches, endeavour to provide stimulating, enjoyable, satisfying and appropriately challenging learning experiences for all pupils. Through the selection of suitably differentiated and logically developed tasks, it is intended that pupils, irrespective of their ability, will enjoy success and be motivated to further develop their individual potential.
Pupils are encouraged to appreciate the importance of a healthy and fit body, and begin to understand those factors that affect health and fitness. This work is closely aligned with the school’s policy on health education.
All teaching staff deliver physical education with their own classes and classroom assistants/Sports Apprentice usually work alongside class teachers.
We have a comprehensive programme of Professional Development for staff through the LA, Sports Development and the School Sport Co-ordinator Programme.
Key Stage One;
This includes three national curriculum areas of dance, gymnastics and basic games.
Key Stage Two;
This includes five national curriculum areas of dance, gymnastics, invasion games, swimming and athletics.
Swimming takes place during Year 4 and a catch up in the summer term for Year 5.
All Year 5/6 pupils have the opportunity to experience an outdoor and adventurous activities programme. This takes the form of a residential week at Derwent Hill and also outdoor activities such as orienteering around the school grounds.
In a PE lesson teachers should ensure that pupils are active for the majority of the lesson. Periods of inactivity should be kept to a minimum. The PE lesson should be structured with a warm up, skill development, application and cool down and incorporate the 4 aspects of learning;
- Acquiring and developing skills
- Selecting and applying skills, tactics and compositional ideas
- Knowledge and understanding of fitness and health
- Evaluating and improving performance
All teachers are made aware of the Baalpe Safe Practice in PE Guidelines, LA Health and Safety Guidelines as well as the School’s Health and Safety Policy and risk assessments. When using off-site facilities please refer to the Off-site visit guidelines.
PE Clothing;
- Children must wear appropriate clothing for PE (e.g shorts and T-shirt, or vest and pants). Staff should wear suitable footwear, and clothing which allows freedom of movement.
- When children are taking part in gymnastics and dance, the activities should be done in bare feet or soft-soled gym shoes unless the activity involves rope climbing or high landings, where trainers should be worn.
- All jewellery must be removed for PE lessons.
- Lost/ forgotten kit – if pupils persistently forget kit the class teacher should notify parents of this and seek their assistance to remedy the problem.
- Spare, clean kit is available for those pupils who require it. This can be found in Key Stage Cupboard Areas.
- Children who have verrucas must wear a swimming sock in the pool and must wear plimsolls and socks in the hall.
- Long hair should be tied back.
The Learning environment;
Children must work in a suitable and safe environment. This means;
- The removal of unnecessary furniture form the working space.
- A clean, dry and splinter free floor so that bare foot work can safely take place.
- A safe outdoor surface for playing games (no loose stones and gravel, no badly uneven surfaces, no holes in tarmac or grass surfaces).
- Floor markings for games are sufficiently far away from fences and walls to prevent accidents.
- Before any apparatus is used, it must be checked by the teacher.
Pupil medical conditions;
A record is kept of all pupils with medical conditions which may either affect their ability to participate in physical activity or which may be adversely affected by physical activity (eg asthma) and every teacher needs to be made aware of the recommended treatment in the event of a problem.
In Physical Education, links can be made with other areas of the national curriculum and particularly with literacy, numeracy, ICT, science and PSHE.
Literacy – key vocabulary relevant to the unit of work.
Numeracy – team sizes, scoring, compass work, grid references.
ICT – measuring, timing, use of computers for recording and reporting.
Science – muscles, skeleton, circulation, healthy living.
PSHE – fair play, working in teams, self-esteem.
Various Sports Clubs meet out of class time, during the lunch hour, or after school. The School also competes with other local schools. Years 5 & 6 pupils are given the opportunity to stay at Derwent Hill Outdoor Activity Centre for five days, which is situated in the Lake District. The centre provides for a wide range of adventurous activities which support the P.E. National Curriculum, as well as foundation subjects such as Science, Geography, Art and History; and as cross curricular themes. Years 3, 4 & 5 go swimming for 1 hour each week for a full term.
For the last two years, we have received extra funding to develop PE/Sports throughout school. For more information on this please click here.
