Subject Rationale:

At The Wilfred Owen School, we value physical activity, competition and well-being highly.  We want our children to experience a wide range of sports and activities at different levels of competition, offering them the opportunity to develop their own strengths, abilities and interests which they may pursue both in and out of school.

The quality Physical Education, we expect children to develop a good level of fitness and stamina.  We believe this will support their physical and mental well-being and give them the strategies and skills to develop problem solving techniques, build resilience and express themselves creatively.

Outdoor PE and adventurous activities are an important part of our curriculum offer.  By being in the natural environment and challenging themselves to face and overcome fears or difficulties we hope to build on key personal skills and develop cross curricular aspects of PHSE, such as team building, managing risks, supporting others and positive risk taking.  Residential visits are an important part of our offer.  We run residential visits over three years in Key stage two.  In Year 4 children go on a camp overnight in the Shropshire area.  This enables them to experience a night away from home and engage in Forest School activities and physical activity away from the school environment.  In Year 5 and 6 we go on residentials to an outdoor activity centre such as PGL or Bryntisilio in Llangollen.  During these visits children taking part in gorge walking, rafting, scrambling, abseiling, low and high ropes courses and many more activities.

Competition is an important aspect of our curriculum.  Therefore, we engage in a number of inter and intra schools competitions and tournaments.  This offers the children chance to compete in organised matches against other school.  We do not believe that only those who excel at a given sport should compete and have in the past arranged sporting fixtures and tournaments for those children who do not always get picked to compete.

As child engaging with PE at The Wilfred Owen School will develop these essential characteristics:

• The ability to acquire new knowledge and skills exceptionally well and develop an in-depth understanding of PE.

• The willingness to practise skills in a wide range of different activities and situations, alone, in small groups and in teams and to apply these skills in chosen activities to achieve exceptionally high levels of performance.

• High levels of physical fitness.

• A healthy lifestyle, achieved by eating sensibly, avoiding smoking, drugs and alcohol and exercising regularly.

• The ability to remain physically active for sustained periods of time and an understanding of the importance of this in promoting long-term physical and mental health and well-being.

• The ability to take the initiative and become excellent young leaders, organising and officiating, and evaluating what needs to be done to improve, and motivating and instilling excellent sporting attitudes in others.

• Exceptional levels of originality, imagination and creativity in their techniques, tactics and choreography, knowledge of how to improve their own and others’

performance and the ability to work independently for extended periods of time without the need of guidance or support.

• A keen interest in PE. A willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson, highly positive attitudes and the ability to make informed choices about engaging fully in

extra-curricular sport.

• The ability to swim at least 25 metres before the end of Year 6 and knowledge of how to remain safe in and around water.

Subject Intent:

Develop practical skills in order to participate, compete and lead a healthy lifestyle.

This concept involves learning a range of physical movements and sporting techniques.

Key Stage 1

• Participate in team games, developing simple tactics for attacking and defending.

• Perform dances using simple movement patterns.

• Swimming and water safety: take swimming instruction either in Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2. 

Key Stage 2

• Play competitive games, modified where appropriate, such as football, netball, rounders, cricket, hockey, basketball, badminton and tennis and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending.

• Take part in gymnastics activities.

• Take part in athletics activities.

• Perform dances.

• Take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team.

• Swimming and water safety: take swimming instruction either in Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2. 

Subject Implementation:

P.E. is taught at the Wilfred Owen School as an area of learning in its own right, as well as being integrated where possible with other curriculum areas. It is taught as a minimum of two sessions per week.
The key knowledge and skills of each topic are mapped across each year group. This ensures that children develop their knowledge of games, dance and gymnastics and (from KS2) athletics and outdoor and adventurous activity progressively. The skills in these areas are also therefore developed systematically, with the programme of study for each year group building on previous learning and preparing for subsequent years. Knowledge and skills are informed and linked to enable achievement of key stage end points, as informed by the 2014 National Curriculum.

We teach lessons so that children:

• develop fundamental movement skills, become increasingly competent and confident and access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others.
• engage in competitive (both against self and against others) and co-operative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations.
• apply and develop a broad range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement.
• enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other.
• develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.

Lessons are planned to utilise cross curricular links, as well as the context of the school (including school and local grounds and access to facilities and community role models, such as sports coaches, with specialist skills). The varied curriculum is designed to enable all children to enjoy physical activity and to experience success in sport.

An extensive extra-curricular provision also provides further challenge and access to a range of physical activity. All children have the opportunity to participate in PE at their own level of development, with teachers ensuring that lessons cater for individual needs. As well as securing and building on a range of skills, children develop knowledge of the basic rules of a range of games and activities. They experience positive competition and a focus is placed on developing good sporting attitudes. Children learn in a safe environment and have a foundation for lifelong physical activity, leaving primary school as physically active.

Subject Impact

The children complete each key stage with a high proficiency in each aspect of PE. Children are aware of the link between physical activity and good mental health and understand it’s significance as part of a healthy lifestyle. All children are assessed at the start of KS2 to ensure key skills and PE knowledge is embedded.  This supports progression over time.

The school achieves well in a number of sporting activities and has achieved the School Games Award at gold level for 2018 through to 2020 (award not available this year) in recognition of its PE provision and children’s access to competitive sports, which the school has maintained.  The impact of the school’s work with external agencies also demonstrates the positive impact of the PE curriculum

Please Note: Provision for PE is currently subject to change and will always be informed by the most recent government guidance. Our current risk management of PE activities is outlined in our Covid 19 risk assessment.