At Broomhill First School, Physical Education forms part of our Personal Development curriculum. We enable our children to become confident learners in PE by providing them with skills and knowledge of a range of sporting activities such as invasion games, net and wall games, striking and fielding games along with athletics, gymnastics, orienteering and swimming. As we can now resume face-to-face School Games and Partnership activities, the children will have the chance to take part in hula hooping, multi-skills and skipping festivals and Key Stage 2 teamwork, gymnastics, tag rugby, tri-golf and football competitions.
We have identified water safety as one of our four contextual safeguarding themes so, although the children are offered swimming after they move onto middle school in Year 5, we take the Year 3 and 4 children swimming as we feel it is vitally important that our children are safe around water.
Teachers follow the Complete PE scheme (which follows the National Curriculum) that ensures progression of skills is effectively taught throughout the different Key Stages. This is supported by a carefully developed PE curriculum map to ensure a broad coverage of skills, relevant to our school, that is progressive and supports teachers to retrieve knowledge and skills from previous year groups.
The skills and knowledge that the children build upon each year provide them with opportunities to take part in games competitively in and outside of school and support the development of resilience, team work, positive attitude, communication and cooperation and leadership skills. By using the Complete PE scheme, teaching is designed to help pupils to remember long term, the content they have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger ideas such as performances or matches. The scheme provides opportunities for pre-teaching of knowledge, skills and vocabulary through the use of short video clips and Youth Sports Trust knowledge cards.
During the global pandemic, there was a significant drop in activity levels outside of school and our school promotes the need to be active to stay physically and mentally healthy. In addition to their PE lessons each week, all children receive at least 45 minutes of outdoor play time every day and take part in Forest School activities on a Friday afternoon in their House groups, therefore providing the children with opportunities in each week to develop their physical fitness and mental wellbeing.
The P.E. curriculum is aspirational for all groups of learners as each lesson can be adapted in a variety of ways enabling all children to reach their full potential. This is based on the STEP framework- Space, Task, Equipment and People. By modifying any one of these four areas, it provides the appropriate challenge and understanding for all children including SEND children. Complete PE also incorporates My Personal Best which is an approach to teaching life skills through the PE curriculum that enables all young people to flourish in PE, school and life – now and in the future.
Our aim is for our children to leave our school with a positive attitude towards sport; a plethora of skill sets along with the knowledge to be well equipped to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities in the future. They will leave Broomhill First School with a clear understanding of the positive impact of physical exercise on their own physical fitness and mental wellbeing, ensuring they continue to lead a healthy life style.
