Intent
Elmwood Junior School recognises and values the importance of Physical Education (P.E). PE at Elmwood Junior School aims to develop a fun, high-quality physical education curriculum that inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sports and other physically-demanding activities.
We do this through fully adhering to the aims of the national curriculum for physical education to ensure that all children:
• 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
It is our intention to build a curriculum that enables children to develop knowledge, skills and vocabulary in a broad range of sporting activities, as well as developing values and transferrable life skills such as tolerance, fairness and respect. Through enrichment activities and intra-school competitions, we aim to raise the profile of PE and expose our children to sports they may never have had the opportunity to engage with. Our PE syllabus is based on an enhanced model of Real PE with a clear progression structure from Year 3 to Year 6. This progression of skills has been planned in order to build on the skills needed to meet the end of Key Stage objectives in the National Curriculum. Additionally, an imperative element of the curriculum at Elmwood shows a need for healthy life styles, a balanced diet, positive growth mind-set and the resilience to persevere. We are passionate about the need to teach children how to co-operate and collaborate with others, as part of a team, understanding fairness and equity of play to embed life-long values.
Implementation
The PE curriculum is taught through the use of Real PE, which is in-line with the National Curriculum, and is used to aid teaching staff in their subject knowledge and planning of PE. Teachers are able to adjust and change lessons to suit the needs of their classes but the scheme provides a strong basis of what is expected in each year group.
Each class has access to two hours of high quality physical activity every week. These are either taught by the class teachers, who have received training and support, or by coaches from the Smiths Sports Academy.
Elmwood Junior School also uses organisations such as Croydon Schools Sport Partnership to support and help run PE sessions. Through the use of coaches, fun and innovative sessions are run that offer staff the chance to upskill their own practice.
Each lesson, children are given the opportunity to practise skills in a variety of ways and each lesson builds upon the previous skills, allowing them time to embed it. Different skills are recapped throughout, and across, the years, each time they are being built upon; allowing children to know more and remember more.
Both Year 5 and Year 6 pupils receive swimming lessons with the aim that by the end of Year 6 all children are able to swim a minimum of 25m unassisted. These lessons run in concentrated daily lessons across a fortnight, giving the children the opportunity to take part in other sports throughout the year too. A range of inter and intra events run throughout the school year, giving children opportunities to take part in competitive sports.
Impact
Our curriculum aims to improve the wellbeing and fitness of all children at Elmwood; not only through the sporting skills taught, but through the underpinning values and disciplines that PE promotes. Through strong links with PHSE we promote the overall well-being and health of each child through teaching about self-discipline and that to be successful you need to take ownership and responsibility of their own health and fitness. In all classes, children possess a wide range of physical abilities. 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. Children at Elmwood make good progress in PE and are eager to attend after school clubs and competitive sports events.