‘Leaders take on or construct a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all learners, particularly the most disadvantaged and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or high needs, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life’ EIF 2019

‘The arts, sciences, humanities, physical education, languages and maths all have equal and central contributions to make to a student's education.’ - Ken Robinson

Intent 

The intent of Outwoods Primary School Physical Education curriculum is to inspire all children to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities. Physical Education will provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities will be offered to all children in order to build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect. Through Physical Education we aim to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing confidence and competence in a range of physical activities. We aim to improve health and well-being, promote active participation and lifelong learning, and for each child to fulfil their potential. We aim to ensure that the children’s experience of Physical Education is positive and motivating and that children’s attitudes to a healthy lifestyle are firmly embedded in our curriculum.

Implementation

At an early age the focus is on physical activity and building the children’s fundamental movement skills as well as the gross and fine motor skills related to physical activity. As the children move through the school they build on the physical activity skills and develop them further. They will look at more complex skills and continue to build on them year after year. At Outwoods we have subscribed to a scheme called Real PE. This initiative looks at developing the skills of a child out of the context of a sport situation. Because of the children are learning to apply skills to different scenarios rather than a specific sport. For example children are learning to strike a ball but not in the context of tennis, cricket, rounders etc. This initiative is run through one of the two two-hour sessions we have for PE here. For the other lesson we begin to apply all of the different skills to specific sports.

The way the curriculum is structured at Outwoods is using the use of the RealPE programme in one lesson and a sport-based approach in the other. The RealPE programme focusses on the fundamental movement skills of agility, balance and co-ordination. Intertwining this with games linked to the skills being taught is what helps the children to develop the skills. The learning is heavily child-led through a series of colour-coded challenges for the children to work through – each colour progressing their skills more each time. This colour-coded challenge system gives all children the chance to be successful as well as challenging themselves to improve. Using these challenges can then help on our sports-based learning which is where we look at more of the traditional style sports game to incorporate the learning.

Impact

The impact we have found at Outwoods has been fantastic. Children are feeling much more comfortable in their PE lessons with the introduction of the colour-based skills meaning they feel they can be successful. We have found that the quality also tranfers across to the other lesson where children are also applying the skills learnt from RealPE lessons. We have found that children are thinking much more tactically about the sports they are playing. In recent times we have become successful in our local sports tournaments – becoming 2022 cross country boys champions and the year 4/5 football champions.