Physical Education

Our PE curriculum is designed to encourage all children from Nursery to Year 6 to enjoy a range of different physical activities that aid them to have a mentally and physically healthy life for years to come. Linking to the National Curriculum that states ‘develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities’, we aim for children to develop the knowledge and skills to be proficient and succeed in a range of competitive sports. Through PE, we promote personal developments by enabling children to challenge themselves, try new things and work effectively within a team. 

At Gorseland we teach an engaging PE curriculum which covers the national curriculum requirements. Our curriculum is progressive in that children’s physical skills in different disciplines are built upon each year with increasing levels of challenge, starting with Fundamental movement skills that form the foundation of many sports, games and activities.

Through our teaching, children are encouraged to develop their physical skills and confidence in their own ability and work with others to follow the rules of a game fairly. They are taught to critically observe, analyse and evaluate performance, identifying aspects that make a performance excellent. Lesson plans are adapted so that all children have the opportunity to participate in PE at their own level of development, with teachers ensuring that lessons cater for individual needs. 

Our high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all children to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities. Our curriculum provides all children opportunities to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.

The National Curriculum outlines that children  ‘are physically active for sustained periods of time’. To ensure this, we offer a range of activities at break times and after school to encourage children to be physically active, the daily mile during the school day, sports clubs and wider opportunities such as visitors and competitions. We also have Year 6 sports teams who compete in fixtures and competitions against other local schools. 

The intended impact of our PE curriculum is that children have:

• A keen interest in PE and a willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson. Highly positive attitudes and the ability to make informed choices about engaging fully in extra-curricular activities

• The ability to acquire new knowledge and skills exceptionally well and develop and 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, sleeping well, avoiding drugs and toxins 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 health and well-being.

• The ability to take the initiative and become 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.

• The ability to swim and the knowledge of how to remain safe in and around water.

Teachers make observations of the children's PE skills throughout each unit. Teachers use these observations to form termly judgments as to whether each child has met, exceeded or is working towards the expected standard in PE.

Subject leaders monitor teaching and learning in their subject through observing teaching and learning in lessons, analysing the work produced by children, talking to samples of children in different year groups about what they know and remember from their learning and termly data analysis to track the progress of learning in their subject across the school.