PE

St Gregory’s PE Rationale

PE Intent: 

At St Gregory’s, our P.E curriculum intends to open the world of exercise, sport and physical activity to all children. We want to develop and inspire a love of sport and physical activity that extends beyond their time with us, creating lifelong participation. We place developing fundamental movement skills as the key pillar to enable “pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness” (National Curriculum, 2014). Our P.E and sport provision then progressively builds on these fundamentals to ensure we support the children in developing a range of sport specific skills that enable them to “succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities” (National Curriculum, 2014). We intend for all children to acquire and constantly develop appropriate subject knowledge, skills, values and an understanding of sport specific vocabulary.  

Our high-quality P.E and sports provision helps to shape the current and future health of our children. Through managed and encouraged wider opportunities we provide exposure to new activities, access to clubs, links to clubs in the local community and carefully planned competition and performance opportunities for all at a range of levels. These opportunities provide a platform for our children to be physically active, develop character, support their well-being and to aspire to fulfil their God given potential. All children will leave St Gregory’s having represented the school in at least one sporting opportunity. These “opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect” (National Curriculum, 2014).  

Our P.E curriculum aims to nurture the talent of tomorrow, and provide the opportunities, understanding and experiences for all children to appreciate what God has provided for them. The intent of our P.E curriculum and sporting opportunities is for our children to develop, succeed, excel and aspire to be the healthiest, happiest version of themselves. 

PE Implementation:

Our P.E curriculum has been carefully designed to fulfil the specific needs of our children and to achieve our intent. Through consultation with other P.E leads in our MAC and externally, considering Sport England and AfPE guidance and discussions with local School Games Organisers we are proud of the progressive sequencing of our P.E curriculum and the opportunities it provides. We have matched (and in many areas exceed) the National curriculum through: 

  • Carefully planning topics and areas from EYFS through to Year 6 to ensure both breadth and depth of coverage.  
  • Mapping skills in relation to progression and transferability so that key building blocks are developed over time to improve fundamental movement skills.  
  • Ensuring at least two hours of curriculum P.E is taught throughout school by P.E specialists.  
  • Supporting teachers with carefully planned out whole school and individual CPD.  
  • Developing an assessment system that provides key feedback information at individual, class and whole school level that drives teaching and learning.  
  • Co-ordinated use of external experts to further develop our curriculum and extra-curriculum offer.  
  • A range of clubs are on offer before and after school to support physical activity and success in competitions.  
  • Deliberate planning between the curriculum P.E, extra-curricular clubs and competitions to ensure our children are prepared and confident to succeed in a range of competitive settings. 

PE Impact:

Our P.E curriculum and extra-curricular opportunities motivate our children to think positively about P.E, sport and themselves as people. They develop a mindset of embracing and enjoying being physically active and appreciate that there is an area of sport or activity for everyone. Our P.E team of specialists deliver lessons with confidence, interwoven with strong subject knowledge in order to ensure that our children receive the best P.E provision possible. Our provision is continually adapted to ensure our P.E and sport offer has maximum impact and that our children continue to work on building skills for P.E over time so that they become increasingly confident in applying these in a range of contexts.  

A recent example that showcases the impact of our curriculum and extracurricular lessons is the success of our Year 6 Indoor Athletics Team. Through their curriculum lessons, Year 6 were taught the technique, skills and knowledge required for a School Games Sports Hall Athletics competition. We then held our own inter-school competition where all children applied their learnt skills, from this we then selected our team of 23 children. Our team was selected based on skill, performance, improvement and those who had put in the most effort. The team then competed and won the Coventry East Final. They then went onto represent Coventry East in the Level 3 county finals, securing a Bronze Medal. The careful planning of our curriculum alongside the timing of competitions and extracurricular clubs meant that our children have had a strong, positive experience of excelling in competitive sport and are inspired to continue developing their skills