INTENT

The PE curriculum at Larwood aims to provide all our children with high-quality physical education to enable and inspire them to build confidence and excel in their individual ability and achieve their potential. We provide opportunities for children to become physically confident within a varied curriculum allowing them to strive in competitive sports, build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect. We believe there is a sport/activity that every child can enjoy and participate in. Therefore, we endeavour to give all children a variety of experiences throughout the year across PE lessons, after school clubs and external coaching.

IMPLEMENTATION

Children are taught regularly by a sports coach from year 1 to Year 6. The curriculum is further enhanced by participation in sporting tournaments with other schools in the area such as rugby, cricket, bell boat and dragon boat races.

In addition, we offer an active start intervention. This is for a small group of children who need to expel additional energy before the day begins. This is especially useful for our pupils with ADHD or those who have longer taxi journeys.

We follow the guidelines set by the national curriculum to ensure we offer a range of PE activities that allow each child to feel challenged and offer opportunities to progress further.

In Key Stage 1, pupils develop fundamental movement skills, become increasingly competent and confident and access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others. They are able to engage in competitive (both against self and against others) and co-operative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations.

Pupils are taught to master basic movements including running, jumping, throwing, and catching, as well as developing balance, agility, and co-ordination, and begin to apply these in a range of activities. We also encourage participation in team games; developing simple tactics for attacking and defending and teach the children to perform dances using simple movement patterns.

In Key Stage 2, pupils continue to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement. They enjoy communicating, collaborating, and competing with each other. They develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.

Pupils are taught to use running, jumping, throwing, and catching in isolation and in combination. Children are encouraged to play competitive games, modified where appropriate (for example, badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders, and tennis), and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending. We develop children’s flexibility, strength, technique, control, and balance (for example, through athletics and gymnastics) as well as teaching them to perform dances using a range of movement patterns. There are opportunities for children to take part in outdoor and adventurous activity that challenges them both individually and within a team. Finally, we encourage them to compare their performances with previous ones and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.

Pupils in space hub have an adapted version of PE that is more suitable for their individual needs. There is more focus on gross motor skills, concentration, working as part of team and activities like yoga as well as the traditional focus on games.

SWIMMING

Once children reach Year 6, they will participate in a term of swimming lessons led by qualified teaching staff at Stevenage Leisure Ltd swimming pool in Stevenage, supported by the PE teacher who is a qualified swim instructor and key members of their teaching team.

IMPACT

Our curriculum provides children with 1.5 hours of stimulating activity per week, which has an advantageous impact on their well-being. This is topped up with 1:1 or small group movement breaks such as Active Start, Brain Gym, and Movement breaks.  Within our lessons, children are taught about self-discipline and that to be successful you need to take ownership and responsibility of their own health and fitness. Our impact is therefore to motivate children to utilise these underpinning skills in an independent and effective way in order to live happy and healthy lives.

In all classes, children have a wide range of physical ability. Whilst recognising this fact, we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child and in doing so raise pupil’s health and fitness levels, improve skills, and develop pupil’s resilience, teamwork and perseverance which fit in with several of our Personal Development targets for each pupil.

The use of assessment, questionnaires, and surveys (pupils and staff) and by talking to children, the quality of lessons and confidence in the teaching of PE improves and as a result the level of enjoyment and positive outcomes increases.

We are fortunate enough to have extensive playgrounds, a large hall, use of Fairlands Valley Lakes, Gosling Ski slopes and Hampson Park. There is a wide variety of equipment for different sports, that can be used during lessons, playtime, and lunchtime.

As a school we are making full use of the Sport Premium money that the government has provided us, to better the physical learning experiences of all children. We are committed to using this resource in developing high quality PE lessons, alongside greater opportunities for sporting competitions for all our young people.

If you were to look at a picture of PE and Sport at Larwood School, you will see:

• In curriculum time-a wide variety of sporting activities to enrich children’s PE experiences. This may include alternative games such as obstacle courses and archery.
• No barriers. All children are catered for to meet their individual needs.
• Extra physical activity during the week delivered in small groups or 1:1
• All children being involved in a 'Sports Week' at the end of each year when they are able to play a range of sports/alternative sports.
• Large percentages of children representing the school at festivals, matches and performances.
• Confident children who can talk passionately about their physical/sporting performances, healthy lifestyle fitness and PE learning.
• Children who understand how they should think differently as a dancer, athlete, gymnast, games player and problem solver.
• Children who are always looking to beat their personal best as well as trying to achieve their best collectively within team games