Physical Education

Inspiring our pupils to excel and succeed in a range of sports and other physically demanding activities; unlocking their potential.

Vision

At Farndon Primary School, we have the vision that children will enjoy and understand the importance of Physical Education. We hope to give children the knowledge of skills and games that they can take forward into their later life. We aim to do this through quality first teaching and the opportunity to challenge themselves in order to unlock their potential and to be the best that they can be.

Intent:

“Farndon Primary School recognises the value of Physical Education (P.E). We fully adhere to the aims of the national curriculum for physical education 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.
• Lead healthy, active lives

Getting better at PE is built upon three pillars of progression: motor competences; rules, strategies and tactics; and healthy participation. Pupils build declarative and procedural knowledge about physical activity. Declarative knowledge is the ‘know-what’ and procedural knowledge is the ‘know-when’. There are many overlaps between types of knowledge and pillars of progression.

Motor Competences

These are a person’s ability to make a range of physical actions which include co-ordinating fine and gross motor skills. These are to being able to in everyday activities as well as in play and physical activity. For some children, PE will be the first time these competences are taught. Pupils require sufficient and well-designed opportunities to practise these competences as well as feedback to know how to improve. There is a positive link between confidence and competence

Rules, Strategies and Tactics

Pupils also need to be taught how to move as well as competently. The rules, strategies and tactics which are involved with different types of activity require explicit teaching. Tactics are the decisions people make about how, when and where to move and are closely related to motor competences as they are only successful if pupils can perform the necessary movement. Some physical activities do not have rules or tactics but they do have strategies for success. These are less time-dependent than tactics and can have broader relevance beyond playing games.

Healthy Participation

Pupils need to learn how to participate in physical activity in a healthy way. This can involve having their understanding from outside of school challenged and corrected. For example, public health messages can sometimes be unclear and unhelpful unless pupils understand them in the correct context. Children need to understand how their knowledge of health applies to physical activity so they can participate fully and safely.

Implementation:

At Farndon we are ever evolving in our efforts to meet the needs of our children. In our long term planning, we have identified areas that we need to aim to develop. Since January 2024, we began to utilise the online Sports Coaching Group Medium Term Planning from the PE Passport for our PE planning. We also support this by ideas taken from the Val Sabin schemes of work. Through using this Medium Term Planning we can guarantee the link and progression of skills from Rec to Year six. Within our carefully planned curriculum, lessons are delivered covering five different areas of sport: athletics, gymnastics, dance, games and outdoor and adventure activities. We focus on teaching the declarative knowledge for motor competencies, rules and strategies, and healthy participation and once secure, teach the procedural knowledge. 

In line with the Association for Physical Education's outcomes for high quality PE, our curriculum embeds the qualities such as; fair play; communication and team work. These are skills that our children are able to transfer throughout the curriculum. PE lessons we deliver provide our children with a confident understanding of basic skills in year three developing to a competent understanding of tactical awareness in year six. During our PE lessons (gymnastics and dance), we make links to wider curriculum topics such as the Stone Age, Greeks, Space and Romans.

To aid teacher assessment, children record themselves and their classmates completing the skills that they have learnt within their topic and provide a commentary using learnt vocabulary and this is evidenced on the PE Passports. 

 Impact:

Children at Farndon Primary School enjoy PE. They thoroughly enjoy learning about different sports and different skills. They have a good knowledge of the skills and can articulate their understanding of what they are doing and learning.

Through our curriculum and use of iPep, we can see a clear development of skills within our children. The skills that we cover through our lessons are being seen across other areas of the school. Links made in lessons that link to wider curriculum subjects are helping to secure understanding of learning in both PE and other subjects.

The impact of our CPD is that staff are more confident in their subject knowledge and in the delivery of PE lessons. Our sports teams have seen improved success such as winning many of the tournaments against our cluster schools and have performed well in county wide events making finals and winning trophies.

Files to Download