Our PE Subject Leader is Miss Kennedy.
Curriculum Intent
At Gilnow, we aim to develop all children’s physical skills alongside their social and emotional well-being. We want to engage, motivate and inspire children to develop a love of physical exercise, games and healthy lifestyles. We recognise the need for a high quality curriculum alongside providing experiences and extra-curricular activities throughout a Gilnow Child’s Physical Education journey. We continue to build a love of sport and being active by offering clubs at lunchtime and after school, alongside playground activities led by Year 6 play leaders.
Our hope is that our children develop self-discipline, team skills and become competent across a broad range of physical activities in both competitive and non-competitive environments. We strive for them to believe that anything can be achieved through resilience and determination, building into our curriculum the study of contemporary sports stars, to develop our children’s knowledge and understanding of diversity and equality.
Through our affiliation with Bolton ‘School Games’ our children are invited to attend festivals and tournaments throughout the year, as well as our subject lead’s access to a yearly PE conference. These opportunities to participate and compete in a range of sports and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.
This whole range of opportunities we provide help each child to develop life skills of: resilience, assertiveness, self- esteem, communication, social, self-regulation, problem solving and emotional awareness. We aim for our children to understand the benefits and impact of being healthy on the body and mind.
Curriculum Implementation
In order to provide a high quality curriculum we work alongside our PE specialist coaches, to deliver 2 hours of PE lessons each week to all our KS1 and 2 classes. This enables our staff to see a specialist deliver a carefully planned and sequenced curriculum over the school year, with a specific focus each half term and weekly skills targets. We return to these skills throughout each year and each year group.
Working alongside these coaches, our teachers monitor the progress our children make in developing year group appropriate skills linked to the National Curriculum. Challenge is encouraged at a group and individual level. Lessons allow time to develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.
Our EYFS children have daily experiences built into provision in their classroom and outdoor environment to develop both their fine and gross motors skills. Our Reception children also have a 1 hour PE lesson each week, to develop their core strength and coordination and help them with the transition to Year 1.
Half termly teaching sequences across year groups have been carefully considered and mapped out. This ensures the children all gain a wide coverage of skills, access a wide variety of physical activities and allows for clear progression throughout the school. Within our curriculum a range of sports are taught where the children can practise and develop skills previously developed in lessons. These are repeated across year groups to ensure learning is not forgotten, but built upon.
Swimming lessons are provided in Year 5 and 6 over a 10 week period. If needed and where possible we offer children additional lessons to help enable them to reach the required level of competency for swimming and water safety by the end of Key Stage 2.
We have a range of resources to enable the provision of high quality lessons and include games and sports in which children can demonstrate the skills they have been developing. We also have a range of outdoor playground equipment for use by all children across school during their break and lunchtimes to encourage active lifestyles, whilst building up core strength, agility, coordination and balance.
We assess children’s development against skills in each lesson in order to make a teacher assessment at the end of each half term as to whether each child has achieved these skills targets. These skills are taken from our half termly key knowledge maps. We also use the swimming teacher’s assessment of children’s ability to swim 5m, 10m and 25m as well as perform the required life-saving skills.
Links are made between PE lessons and other curriculum subjects where possible, particularly in Science through studies of Human Growth and Development and work on Healthy Lifestyles. In PE lessons references are made to how our bodies react to exercise.
Healthy snack choices are encouraged across the school and promoted through our school newsletter. Our Nursery, Reception and Year 1 classes participate in the ‘School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme’ and are provided with a piece of fruit for snack daily. Our Nursery and Reception classes are also provided with a carton of milk daily as well as participating in daily tooth brushing, to teach and promote healthy choices and lifestyles.
Our Gilnow curriculum provides a range of experiences over a child’s journey through school, including activity based day trips and experiences, some of which are linked to local sports clubs and schools in our cluster.
We run both lunchtime and after school sports and activity clubs, and pupil voice is considered when selecting what to offer each term, in order to ensure equity of access and inclusion for all pupils in KS1 and 2.
Our Year 6 children have the opportunity to volunteer as play leaders and those successful are trained in their roles, modelling sportsmanship and developing their own leadership skills. They then support younger children across school during lunchtimes to engage in games and activities.
We are a member of the ‘School Games’ programme and have a link to the Bolton organiser who is based at a local high school, as well as Bolton School who also host events over the year. The website is checked termly and opportunities where possible are made for a range of children across KS1 and 2 to participate in events over the year, staff being mindful to ensure equity of access and inclusion for all.
Curriculum Impact
The children complete each key stage with high proficiency in each aspect of the PE curriculum.
That children are aware of the link between physical activity and good mental health as well understanding its significance as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Children leave Gilnow having been able to achieve all basic skills of agility, balance and coordination, attacking and defending, sending and receiving, striking and fielding, as well as performing dances.
The curriculum is designed to prepare children for high school through their experience of a range of sports and development of transferable skills, so they can feel confident to specialise in sports of their interest in KS3.
That children enjoy their PE lessons and extra-curricular opportunities, monitored through pupil voice.
Pupils’ achievement is monitored through half termly skills assessments.
Pupils’ achievement is reported to parents on their end of year reports. At the end of EYFS, reception children’s achievement is teacher assessed against the ‘Prime area of learning’ for ‘Physical Development and reported to parents on their end of year report.
To promote our PE curriculum and children’s interest in physical activity lessons are captured on a weekly basis on the ‘PE’ display board in the hall. Sporting events are captured and shared on school newsletters and through weekly celebration assemblies and ‘Twitter’.
We review our yearly spending of Sports Premium Funding to ensure we are using this money effectively to raise standards and access to PE, Sport and healthy lifestyles.
