Flapper Fold Lane, Atherton, M46 0HA
01942 882980

PE Curriculum Statement

Intent

Saint Richard’s RC Primary is situated in the top 20% of the most deprived schools nationally with more than half of our pupils claiming free school meals, more than double the national average. We are a school with higher than average percentage of physical and ill health, low expectation and a number of children experiencing social and emotional issues.

Taking these factors into consideration Saint Richard’s RC Primary understand the importance of PE and the role it has to play in promoting long term, healthy lifestyles. The intent of our PE curriculum is to provide all children with high quality PE and sport provision. It is our vision for every pupil to succeed and achieve their potential as well as to lead physically active lifestyles. We want our pupils to appreciate the benefits of a healthy and physically active lifestyle. We strive to inspire our pupils through fun and engaging PE lessons that are enjoyable, challenging and accessible to all. Through our teaching of PE, we will provide opportunities for pupils to develop values and transferrable life skills such as respect, resilience, fairness as well as providing them with opportunities to take part in competitive sport.

 

Implementation

The national curriculum for physical education 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 and lead healthy, active lives.

A high quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel. At Saint Richard’s RC Primary, we use the Spiral PE Curriculum. A Spiral Curriculum is an approach to education that introduces key concepts to students at a young age and covers these repeatedly, with increasing degrees of complexity.

In Key Stage One children focus on the fundamentals of movement to give them the key building blocks of physical literacy. This is split into three areas: agility, balance and co-ordination.

In Key Stage Two these fundamental skills are built on within three new areas: cognitive, physical and manipulation.

At St Richard’s we look to embed and contextualise the skills during each academic year. As pupils move through the school there is an increase in the challenge levels in each of the 18 key stage specific skill areas.

Every child takes part in an hour long PE lesson each week. Children are also encouraged to have active playtimes and this contributes to another 60-90minutes of physical activity each week.

In addition, all Year 2 attend a weekly swimming lesson for half of the year. All Year 3 attend a weekly swimming lesson for the other half of the year. During swimming lessons children are taught to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres. Focus on how to use a range of stroke effectively and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

Year 6 have an annual residential trip in which they undertake a series of physical and challenging activities, including: assault course; low rope/ high rope; climbing/ abseiling wall; raft building and many more. This allows children to develop a broader range of skills and enables them to learn how to use them in different ways. The children also develop communication, collaboration and compete against each other in different activities. They are able to take part in outdoor and adventurous activities which both challenge them individually and as part of a team.

Enrichment

In addition to the core PE curriculum we deliver a well-developed enrichment PE curriculum. PE is further supplemented by the opportunity for children in key stage one and two to take part in physical activity during morning and lunchtime breaks on one of two well-equipped school yards, stocked with resources. Staff and playground leaders (trained pupils from Upper Key Stage 2) are on duty to co-ordinate a range of active playground games.

During the Summer Term, whole school sports days are held covering traditional sporting activities, our focus during these events is not only competitive but also participation.

 

Impact

In all class’s children have a wide range of physical ability. Whilst recognising this fact, we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child and in doing so raise pupil’s health and fitness levels, improve skills and develop pupil’s resilience, teamwork and perseverance.