Physical Education Curriculum Rationale

At Hillcrest Primary we are athletes! We want our children to love physical education and sport. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be personal trainers, nutritionists, sports journalist or gold medal winners . We want them to embody our core values. We all believe that: “All children can learn and discover together to create a better world”. The PE curriculum has been carefully crafted so that our children develop their sporting capital. We want our children to remember their PE lessons in our school, to cherish these memories and embrace the opportunities they are presented with! The whole school heard from the legend Mr Jim Gump ‘THE RUNNING’  Man, who is on a mission to get children up from off the sofa and more active. Jim Plunkett-Cole who is also referred to as Jim Gump because of one of his running  challenges, has been running every day since the London Olympics in 2012. He told our children that what started as a challenge to get himself into physical shape has now turned into a mission in the UK and USA to combat child obesity. He currently has two challenges, to run 30,000 miles over a seven year period, doing at least 10 kilometres (6miles) a day and the Jim Gump challenge. What an inspiring chap! 

Bringing physical education alive is important at Hillcrest Primary School.

Curriculum Intent

The PE curriculum promotes curiosity and a love and thirst for learning. It is ambitious and empowers our children to become independent and resilient – like all curriculum areas. 

We want to equip them with not only the minimum statutory requirements of the physical education National Curriculum but to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.  We belong to the local school football and netball league and won the Inter schools Netball competition last year. Our children excel at swimming and have won the South Bristol Swimming Gla three years in a row. To further demonstrate our commitment to providing broader experiences of a range of sports and activities we offered extra-curricular futsal and tennis clubs.

We want our children to use the vibrancy of our great city to learn from other cultures, respect diversity, co-operate with one another and appreciate what they have. We achieve this by providing a strong SMSC curriculum, with British Values and our core values placed at the heart of everything we do. This often feeds into the PE curriculum. For example, we explored ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ as part of a whole-school themed week.

We enrich their time in our school with memorable, unforgettable experiences and provide opportunities which are normally out of reach – this piques their interests and passions. For example, Year 2 were lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet and greet players from Bristol City Football. The children got to take part in several football session and hone their skills on the pitch. Several of them were invited to take part in training sessions at the Bristol City ground- What a treat! We firmly believe that it is not just about what happens in the classroom, it is about the added value we offer to really inspire our children. 

Curriculum Implementation

The PE curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment milestones for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. For example, we focus our teaching on six main strands of physical education; dance, invasion games, gymnastics, striking and fielding games, athletics and net and wall games. These are revisited year on year where pupils progressively build their skills and knowledge. In addition to this we provide specialist swimming teaching to pupils in Year 3-6.

Physical Education subject specific characteristics, which we expect the children to demonstrate, have been developed and shared with all stakeholders. These characteristics underpin all work in PE and form a focal point for display areas and provide a common subject specific vocabulary for staff and pupils. These characteristics are:

• The ability to acquire new knowledge and skills exceptionally well and develop an in-depth understanding of PE.
• The willingness to practise skills in a wide range of different activities and situations, alone, in small groups and in teams and to apply these skills in chosen activities to achieve exceptionally high levels of performance.
• High levels of physical fitness.
• A healthy lifestyle, achieved by eating sensibly, avoiding smoking, drugs and alcohol and exercising regularly.
• The ability to remain physically active for sustained periods of time and an understanding of the importance of this in promoting long-term health and well-being.
• The ability to take the initiative and become excellent young leaders, organising and officiating, and evaluating what needs to be done to improve, and motivating and instilling excellent sporting attitudes in others.
• Exceptional levels of originality, imagination and creativity in their techniques, tactics and choreography, knowledge of how to improve their own and others’ performance and the ability to work independently for extended periods of time without the need of guidance or support.
• A keen interest in PE. A willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson, highly positive attitudes and the ability to make informed choices about engaging fully in extra-curricular sport.
• The ability to swim at least 25 metres before the end of Year 6 and knowledge of how to remain safe in and around water.

We encourage staff to teach a weekly PE lesson. This helps to ensure sufficient time is allocated to PE and that PE subject matter can be revisited frequently. We believe that by crafting our curriculum this way, we improve the potential for our children to retain what they have been taught, to alter their long-term memory and thus improve the rates of progress they make. 

Curriculum Impact

We use both formative and summative assessment information in every PE lesson. Staff use this information to inform their short-term planning. This helps us provide the best possible support for all of our pupils, including the more able. The assessment milestones for each phase have been carefully mapped out and further broken down for each year group. This means that skills in PE are progressive and build year on year. 

Our staff use PE formative assessment grids to systematically assess what the children know as the topic progresses and inform their future planning. These formative assessment grids then inform summative assessment judgements for each topic.

Assessment information is collected frequently and analysed as part of our monitoring cycle. This process provides an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the quality of education in PE. Monitoring in PE includes: lesson observations and/or learning walks, pupil/parent and/or staff voice.

All of this information is gathered and reviewed. It is used to inform further curriculum developments and provision is adapted accordingly.

At Hillcrest Primary School, we are ATHLETES!