Withycombe Raleigh
C of E Primary School
Headteacher Mrs E Jones
Physical Education - Intent
At Withycombe Raleigh C of E Primary School, Physical Education (PE) is an integral part of our curriculum. We aim to deliver a rich, broad, balanced progressive curriculum which is fun and high-quality that not only encourages children to succeed and excel in PE lessons, but also provides our children with a deep understanding of the links between physical literacy and health, mental well-being and emotional development, thus creating life-long habits and enabling our children to make healthy and informed decisions in their adult lives.
Our dynamic PE curriculum teaches children the skills, knowledge and vocabulary required to succeed across a range of sports, outdoor activities and physical situations and encourages them to immerse themselves fully in what the local environment has to offer.
Children will have the opportunity to explore competition and enrichment opportunities in a safe and inclusive environment, which not only raises the profile of PE, but also encourages them to adopt a Growth Mindset and believe that goals can be achieved with the application of the five foundations for building character: resilience, determination, self-belief, friendship and fair play.
Implementation
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At Withycombe Raleigh C of E Primary School Physical Education is accessible for all children/groups within the school.
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PE at Withycombe Raleigh C of E Primary School provides challenging and enjoyable learning through a range of sporting activities including: invasion games, net and wall games, striking and fielding games, gymnastics, dance, swimming and outdoor and adventure.
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The progressive long term plan sets out the objectives which are to be taught throughout the year. This ensures that the requirements of the National Curriculum are met through the PE Hub’s division into three main areas: physically competent, physically active; tactics and strategies, decision maker, creative and competitive; and I can, I want to, I will.
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Pupils participate in two high-quality PE lessons each week, covering two sporting disciplines every half term.
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We ensure that the status and importance of PE as a subject is recognised and that links to the wider curriculum are made wherever possible.
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All teaching staff use the PE Hub platform to plan and to deliver sequential and progressive lessons, building on previous knowledge and experience of skills. The delivery also encompasses Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction (2010). The four strands (Reviewing Material, Questioning, Explaining and Modelling and Practising) suggested by Rosenshine are embedded throughout, helping children to avoid overload of their short-term memories and to make connections to prior learning, this is especially prevalent where a similar skill set is shared between activities or where skills and knowledge overlap through units. Whenever possible and suitable, our PE lessons begin with a ‘review’ activity which encourages children to retrieve and recall their prior learning, vocabulary, skills and/or knowledge. This is carefully thought-out and designed by teachers, allowing them to draw upon previous successes and content preparing children for what they are about to learn in the current teaching session. We are also careful not to overload children’s thinking by presenting them too much content in one session; using a small steps approach ensures that children can fully understand and access their learning.
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Targeted, high-quality physical interventions are delivered to support those children who are significantly below age-related expectations (including FunFit and HighFive)
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PE Leads and teachers work closely with SGO’s, DSSP and other learning community PE leads to ensure the PE provision is constantly monitored and improved – often leading to high quality CPD made accessible to staff.
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Children are encouraged to participate in a wide range of fully inclusive (on-site) after school clubs. Active clubs are offered for both KS1 and KS2 children and include the following: tennis, multi-skills, football, tag rugby, Wild Tribe, water sports and running club.
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Children are given the opportunity to work with sports coaches both in and out of school and are sign-posted to clubs available in the local area, if these are not offered on-site.
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Children have opportunities to attend competitive sporting events and festivals held at school, within the local area and beyond. An inclusive approach which endeavours to encourage not only physical development but mental well-being.
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At Withycombe we have introduced a bespoke active travel scheme designed to encourage children to bike, scoot or walk to school and also alleviate congestion.
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We aim to ensure that physical activity is embedded across the school day and all our children achieve the essential 30 minutes of physical activity. This is encouraged through the use of active travel, active break and lunchtimes (gym equipment, play boxes, trim trail etc), daily mile, GoNoodle, Imoves, Active Blasts and more.
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Our Year 6 children can become Play Leaders for the school. The Play Leaders develop into sporting role models for the younger children; assisting with and organising games at break times.
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Year 5 and 6 children are also offered the opportunity to receive training to become Mental Health Ambassadors within school and support their peers.
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At Withycombe, parental interest and engagement in physical activity is encouraged through the use of the School Games/Active Devon virtual challenges.
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Our PE provision aims to expand beyond the norm and includes experiences such as sailing (Year 5), paddle boarding, kayaking and windsurfing (Years 4, 5 and 6) and a residential stay (Year 6). We hope that this inspires our pupils to make the most of and to engage with their local coastal and moorland environments.
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Children in Year 3 and year 5 swim once a week for a full term with the intention that all children are safe and confident in the water and reach the minimum National Curriculum requirements. Catch-up sessions are also offered for developing swimmers in Year 6.
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Wild Tribe training has been undertaken by some staff and this is intended to be woven through the curriculum to encourage outdoor/active learning where possible.
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We celebrate the sporting achievements of our children and staff (both in and out of school) in our weekly newsletter and assemblies to ensure that a love of sport/ physical activity is shared within the wider school community.
Impact
We aim for our children to leave Withycombe Raleigh C of E Primary School physically literate with a passion for sport and exercise which is underpinned by a thorough understanding of what it means to truly be healthy – in mind, body and spirit.
We hope that our children will become adults that can make informed choices about how they use and care for their bodies and that their choices lead to happy and content adulthood.
Through exposure to a well-planned curriculum with many wider opportunities and adventurous activities we aim for our children to be confident to try new things and make full use of what our locality has to offer.