Curriculum Overview
“Creating positive relationships with physical activity for life!” Real PE, Creative Development
Intent
At Banstead Infant School, PE is taught to inspire children to create a lasting interest in physical activity to ensure that they lead and appreciate the importance of a healthy and active lifestyle. We aim to develop the whole child and want every pupil to feel included, challenged and supported. Children will develop fundamental movement skills including agility, balance and co-ordination through PE lessons, as well as taking part in daily Wake and Shake sessions. We also aim to provide the children with a wide variety of sporting activities before and after school, which are offered to all children, and we participate in local competitive tournaments where possible. We aim to ensure that all staff are equipped with the skills to deliver exciting and engaging lessons with confidence where the children feel included, valued, challenged and supported to achieve their maximum potential. We acknowledge that frequent involvement in PE is crucial to children’s physical, emotional and mental well-being resulting in improved self-discipline, self-confidence and sociability.
The National Curriculum for Physical Education aims to ensure that all pupils:
· 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.
Implementation
At Banstead Infant School we teach PE through the Real PE programme which is supported by Jasmine, a Real PE digital platform. It provides fun, interactive PE lessons with integrated videos and resources to support progression. Throughout the year, we focus on developing six key areas of development: personal, social, physical, cognitive and creative skills and health and fitness.
By teaching PE in this way, all children can succeed at their own pace. In each lesson they are given opportunities to improve their fundamental skills (balance, coordination, and agility) and make important decisions about their own learning, for example, challenging and evaluating themselves and others constructively.
Each year, all year groups visit High Ashurst which is an Outdoor Education Centre is set in 56 acres of woodland. In the setting the children experience a wide range of activities including archery, challenge course, climbing, orienteering, team tasks and woodland skills. The skills learnt at High Ashurst are applied in our school grounds through using our very own orienteering course, trim trail, climbing wall and Forest School.
At Banstead Infant School we also understand the importance of physical activity outside of school hours to support both physical and mental wellbeing. Therefore, we offer a range of extra-curricular activities which include drama, playball, dance, gymnastics, yoga and all year groups participate in multi-skills sessions on rotation each week. We also provide healthy lifestyle and wellbeing sessions which include cooking, drawing, chess and stitches.
All children take part in competitive and cooperative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations. In the autumn term the opportunity for competition is within classes, in the spring term, across the year groups and in the summer term, across the whole school with spectators at sports day. Where possible we participate in tournaments which involve other schools, for example, multi-skills and football.
In the Early Years outdoor learning areas, children have access to the following zones: Fitness, Construction, Digging, Climbing and Large Scale Loose Parts, all equipped with a variety of resources to enhance gross motor skills and to support with negotiating space - a key element of the ‘Physical Development’ strand of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum.
Structured games are encouraged at lunchtimes to ensure there are opportunities for the children to participate in purposeful physical activity across all year groups.
Impact
The impact of Real PE and Gym has been positive. It has developed a love for physical learning and has allowed children as well as staff to develop a healthy attitude to physical activity. It has had a huge impact on the ability of every teacher to lead sessions and to challenge and improve their practice. The lessons often provide a high level of excitement, creativity and fun and children really look forward to their PE sessions.
Real PE and Gym has placed the learner at the heart of practice and has transformed how we teach PE. We now apply the high-quality learning and teaching skills, that have become the norm in other subjects, into PE which has had a significant impact on our learners. We are committed to continually improve the quality of PE teaching so that all our children improve their health, skills and physical literacy, and have exposure to a broader range of activities.
Lessons are fun and imaginative, producing high levels of engagement from our children. An established growth mindset amongst pupils can be seen during PE lessons. The children can be seen learning at different and appropriate levels, with opportunities for them to take responsibility and challenge themselves when ready. Effective review of learning by teachers and children is an integral part of each lesson and consistent praise of positive behaviours means they have highly positive experiences in the subject and consequently want and expect to do well.
The PE & Sport premium funding has hugely helped with our transformation of PE and the overall love of physical activity across the school. A plan and review have been shared showing the spending of the funding and the impact it has had.
Following the success of Real PE and Gym, we have now incorporated dance into the curriculum via the Real Dance programme. This involved all teaching staff attending training to learn and understand how to deliver Dance and promote it in a positive way. Moving forward, we will continue with any training needed and teachers will learn and support each other through observations and team teaching. This will enable us to confidently deliver high quality dance lessons as part of the PE curriculum where the intent is married up with Real PE and Real Gym.
Finally, we plan to explore how we can further embed competition experiences within the school and, when appropriate, the wider community, to ensure that all children can benefit from healthy competitive experiences.
