Intent
At Richmond Methodist, we believe that PE is ‘for all‘, a vital part of school life and ultimately our children’s well-being, both present and future. It is therefore our intent to provide an inclusive, broad and balanced PE curriculum that ensures all children will benefit, whether through developing existing skills, learning new skills or being introduced to new sports, clubs, teams and organisations.
It is our intent to ensure that our children understand the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle and to equip them with the tools to do so through health and well-being education. In addition, it is our intent to use physical education as a vehicle to ‘do all the good we can’. This is through developing communication and leadership skills within lessons, through our ‘Sports representative’, ‘House Captains’ and ‘playground leader’ groups. Children will be taught how to cooperate and collaborate with others as well as teach them understanding of fairness and equality.
We believe that participation in sporting activity is a key element of developing a school in which pupils are proud of the community in which they belong. Therefore, great emphasis is placed upon additional sporting opportunities beyond the lesson within lunchtime and after-school clubs, intra and inter-school competition and festivals as well as directly trying to support the local clubs within the Richmond area and our feeder schools. Our aim is to provide our children with a life-long love of sport and physical activity and to guide them to pursue their interests outside of school. We believe this links directly with our school ethos of ‘doing all the good we can’ and is another way in which we can positively engage with our local community and be active citizens within it.
Implementation
We will develop our children’s competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities. They will be physically active for sustained periods of time, throughout the school day as part of our ‘Teach Active’ lessons and timetabled ‘active breaks’. Our children will engage in competitive sports and activities and through our P.E. and also wider P.S.H.E. curriculum, lead healthy, active lives.
The children will receive physical education through exploring their physical environment and developing their locomotor, non-locomotor and manipulative skill and knowledge through a range of contexts within a year. The emphasis is put upon exploration and creative co-ordination in movement. PE is broadly divided into four strands:
Games –which include knowledge of ball skills and ball games in Key Stage 1, and in Key Stage 2 football, rugby, netball, hockey, dodgeball, cricket, basketball, golf, tennis and rounders.
Gymnastics – involves developing the pupils’ knowledge skills on the floor and on different apparatus.
Dance – a variety of themes are taught, some linking with other subjects, others taught as discrete dance projects.
Outdoor and Adventurous Activities – this element of the curriculum is largely covered by two residential visits that take place in Years 4 and 6 but is also included within our outdoor learning lesson and as part of the Key Stage 2 curriculum.
In Key Stage 1 and 2 athletics is taught. There are opportunities for extra-curricular teaching in football, netball, dodgeball, multi-skill, golf, hockey, cricket, tennis, tag-rugby and basketball. In years 3 /4 swimming is taught. It is also available to those children in Year 5 and 6 who have not achieved the end-of-Key-Stage-2 swimming standards. Parents should note that there is a request for a voluntary donation to cover the cost of pool fees and transport. However, no child is excluded on grounds of cost.
Throughout the year, we aim to provide a number of taster session to allow pupils to experience different sports, such as Judo. Again, we hope to give children experiences that will inspire them to pursue their sporting interests outside of school and throughout their childhood and beyond.
Impact
‘All’ of our children will have received a high-quality physical education curriculum that will have inspired them to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities. ‘All’ children will have had opportunities to become physically confident, supporting their mental and physical health, both now and for the future through ‘doing all the good they can’ in sport. Through the P.E. curriculum, our children learn first-hand why fairness is so important and ‘all’ are valued. They also understand how our school vision of being ‘Ready, Mutually respectful and Safe’ will stand them in good stead to succeed and excel, be strong and resilient through life’s journey.