PE at St Thomas’
Intent – Our vision for PE
At St. Thomas’ the children enjoy a broad and balanced PE curriculum. The intention of Physical Education at St. Thomas’ is to promote children to be healthy in body and in mind. We want our children to be strong, fit and active; for our children to grow up to be happy, resilient, responsible, confident and independent.
Children will learn through playing games and learning new skills with a variety of equipment across a range of accessible sporting activities. Accessibility is very important to us as we envision an inclusive curriculum that helps to build confidence in all children. We care greatly about our children’s health and fitness and consider this a priority when planning any PE activity.
We have developed links with many clubs and organisations in our local community including Warrington Wolves, Cheshire Cricket, and LiveWire Tennis. These links enable our children to take their PE skills and love of sport further with specialist coaches and like-minded children across the borough. Alongside the teaching of disciplinary and substantive knowledge, skills and understanding within the subject, it is our aim to promote positive mental health and well-being in all pupils and the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle.
At St Thomas’ we wish that all our pupils grow up to live happy and healthy lives utilising the skills and knowledge acquired through PE and our school values.
Implementation – How we plan for, and teach PE
At St Thomas’, we combine the six cogs of Real PE with the National Curriculum to provide children with engaging, efficient, well-balanced lessons.
Control and movement – Children develop the ability create different shapes and stretches using their body. Children work on being able to do these slowly and holding these positions.
Sequence and repetition – Children will learn to perform longer sequences and respond differently to different tasks and different music. They will be able to adapt their skills and apply them to different activities.
Social skills – Children will build their teamwork, sportsmanship and ability to give and receive feedback in a supportive manner.
Evaluating and improving – Children will be able to assess where they are with their learning and know how to improve themselves.
Health and fitness – Children will know how exercise effects the body and will understand the importance of warm up, cool downs and improving their fitness.
The PE lead checks long term plans to ensure coverage of objectives according to the National Curriculum. PE is taught twice a week by the class teacher. In Real PE lessons, each half term builds upon a particular skill (health and fitness, cognitive, creative etc.) using a variety of resources and equipment to maintain engagement and develop confidence. These skills are revisited each year and are built upon to show progress. Real Gym and Real Dance are also taught each year to show skill progression in these key areas.
In addition to the Real PE Core, Dance and Gymnastics units of work, children develop their skills as part of additional competitive Games; Invasion Games, Net & Wall Games, Striking and Fielding Games, Athletics and Outdoor & Adventure Activities.
Essential learning also includes swimming and water safety. Children in Year 4 and 5 swim once a week for 10 weeks during Spring and Summer Terms by a qualified swim instructor. At St Thomas’ our aim is for all pupils to; swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a set distance, use a range of strokes effectively, and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.
Throughout the year, we have memorable experiences such as inter- and intra-school competitions or in-school visitors to create excitement, inspire children and make them aware of the multitude of sport in their community. We strongly believe in inclusivity for all abilities which is why we also take part in the annual WaSSP Ability Day. Every year our year 6 cohort can be trained as play leaders. They develop into sporting role models for the children, assisting with lunch time clubs and sporting activities.
In order to ensure the skillset and knowledge base necessary for quality force teaching, we are members of Jasmine, a website from which we take our Real PE resources. Teachers receive specialist CPD in Real PE, Real Gym and Real Dance and implement these skills into PE lessons. The use of a great variety of resources from different experts ensure that our lessons demonstrate high-quality planning, teaching and assessment of the subject.
Throughout all PE lessons, regular recall of facts, as well as regular peer and self-evaluation, aids the children to commit their learning in PE to their long-term memory, ensuring they will retain this ‘sticky knowledge’ throughout their primary education.
At St Thomas’ we help to motivate children to participate in a variety of different sports through quality teaching that is fun, interactive and engaging. From our lessons, our children learn how to take responsibility for their own health and fitness. We equip our children with necessary skills and love for sports, whilst highlighting the importance of perseverance and respect that is needed to participate, this is demonstrated through our children’s achievements both in school and out. At St Thomas’, we strongly encourage children to participate in sporting activities outside of school and also have after school clubs that children can take part in. The children also inspire others through sharing their development pathways and success, both in school and in out of school sporting activities.
Impact - How we evaluate learning in PE
At St Thomas’ we focus on children developing the six key skills as outlined by Real PE:
- Personal
- Social
- Applying Physical
- Cognitive
- Creative
- Health and Fitness
We assess the children’s development of these skills through regular Assessment for Learning (AfL) allowing us to quickly adapt lessons to suit the needs of the learners. At the beginning of each unit, cogs break down the learning objectives which allow the children to follow the simple steps to achieving their goals. During these Real PE lessons, pupils are encouraged to reflect on their learning using Review Questions and the Dice tool.
These questions are also carried through to additional games lesson where the children are encouraged to reflect on their learning in order to make further improvements and to learn from others.
We regularly monitor progress and outcomes to ensure that the children reflect a sound understanding of the key identified knowledge. Development Wheels from Real PE allow teachers to track progress of the class as a whole, and to identify areas for further development. Key areas of learning are revisited where necessary. The outcomes of all pupils will be monitored by class teachers, subject leaders and SLT through assessment. Through regular peer and self-evaluation, pupils develop a deeper understanding of the key skills covered throughout each PE lessons. Pupils also learn to communicate effectively and respectfully with one another.
Through improving and combining these skills, we give every child the chance to become a confident, healthy and aspirational PE learner who can positively move on to the next step in their education.
At St Thomas’ we take pride in our pupils sporting achievements as a school but also as part of a wider community. We celebrate any and all achievements weekly in our Celebration Assembly time.