Physical Education

Intent

Get ready to move!

Physical Education is an extremely important part of the curriculum at GEMS Didcot Primary Academy.  Every child has access to at least 2 hours of PE a week taught by our own school staff and sports coaches. Our aim is to inspire all of our children to live a healthy and more active lifestyle; this is achieved by providing them with stepping stones to find a love for physical activity for life.

Implement

What to expect

Here at Gems Didcot Primary Academy, we strive to give all of our pupils high quality PE lessons which accommodates all needs and abilities. Our lessons are structured following the high quality PE schemes of work provided by the PE Hub who are partnered with the Association for Physical Education. 

Our inclusive lessons are structured in a way to give our children the maximum opportunity to progress, these are broken up into four main parts:

Part one - Warm up (which is linked to the lessons objective)

Part two - Introduction of new skill

Part three - Development of skill

Part four - Opportunity to apply the skill within a game situation 

Over the year, the pupils are given the chance to progress within a wide range of different sports, which is incorporated in tailored opportunities in both the curriculum and extra-curricular time - please see the PE long term planning at the bottom of the page. One lesson a week is taught by our class teachers and the other by a highly experienced sports coach who specialises in many areas that we use to our full advantage. To continue to develop our PE here at Gems, we have our PE specialist teacher regularly observe both the teachers and the coach; this is to ensure that our PE curriculum is consistent, giving our pupils the chance to experience the high quality PE that they are entitled to.

We ensure that physical activity is also accessible outside of PE lessons. For example, pupils are provided with the opportunity to use our sports equipment at break and lunchtimes, this allows the pupils to practise their skills further. We also give our KS2 pupils a fitness break in the afternoon where they can choose to take part in the daily mile or the fitness challenge for the week; whilst our Year Four children take weekly swimming lessons to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum

In addition to this, we hold a number of different inter-house sporting events throughout the year, this stimulates healthy competition and sportsmanship amongst our pupils.

Impact

Providing our pupils with high quality PE is something we pride ourselves with here at Gems Didcot Primary Academy. As a result, we have seen a positive impact upon our pupils physical and mental health, with the majority achieving age-related expectations. Furthermore, with increasing opportunities and consistent lesson structure, it has increased the percentage of pupils working above the expected level.

With tailored opportunities for all, our pupils are able to take their learning into their own hands by participating in our daily mile, taking part in our weekly challenges and attending extra-curricular sports clubs, which has positively impacted our pupil’s fitness levels. The percentage of pupils attending after-school clubs has increased substantially and strong links have been made through external providers to further their skills and passion in the sports that they love.  

Through healthy competition both internally and externally through links with the community, we have seen our pupils not just increase their skills but also learn the value of good sportsmanship - something we think is very important here at Gems. Our inter-house competitions have also allowed our pupils to form bonds with other pupils across the year groups, this has enabled our younger pupils to have role models within the school who can model safe use of equipment and help progress their skills.

School Games Mark 2018/19

As part of our aim to lead our children to a healthy and more active lifestyle we are working closely with the school games partnership to develop competition, school sport, physical education and physical activity across our school. Our school is currently on track for a Gold Award which highlights that we are offering our pupils a broad and balanced curriculum closely monitoring pupils activity levels, whilst providing pupils with a number of different opportunities to actively engage in physical activity.