Physical Education

Curriculum intent statement: Physical Education and Sport

The Physical Education curriculum is designed to offer a fully inclusive, high quality education that inspires, challenges and supports all learners to achieve their full potential. We aim to develop the whole character and sporting profile of every learner within our context and strive to positively impact their future involvement in physical activity.

Physical Education, Sport and Dance operate a cumulative curriculum which is carefully sequenced; each stage forming the basis for the powerful and disciplinary knowledge required to progress to the next stage. The sequencing of learning is planned so that pupils build up knowledge so that they remember it; each stage in a learner’s journey increases in complexity and new contexts are added to consolidate learning within each learning activity to support progress.

Expert pedagogical subject knowledge leads the design of a curriculum that is fully inclusive, considers the local authority sporting calendar and manages facilities and weather to maximise varied learning opportunities for our young people. We have the ambitious goal for every learner to have access to the key themes and concepts that are crucial to becoming a master across the different facets of Physical Education. These key concepts are delivered on a half termly basis, year on year, in a spiral delivery, with sports used as the vehicle to enhance knowledge, skills and understanding. We facilitate this via the Youth Sports Trust ‘Me in PE’ model which encompasses the key benefits of high quality physical education; physical literacy, cognitive/thinking skills, social skills and health benefits.

Learners are assessed both formatively and summatively in order to support progress and drive improvement. Learners are empowered to demonstrate a love for sport and staff relentlessly aim to nurture this while promoting the notion of lifelong participation in sport and physical activity. The promotion of positive mental and physical health underpins everything we do and all learners are provided with opportunities to excel in safe competitive and recreational sporting environments.

Practical content explores the essential skills learners require to demonstrate mastery, many of which applicable to multiple sports and activities. Theoretical content explores wider concepts such as sports coaching, officiating, leadership and how the body operates during exercise. Knowledge and skills interweave throughout the stages to expand learner understanding of curriculum content and best prepare children in terms of cultural capital for the healthy, active lifestyles we hope they lead in later life once moving on from Kepier.

At KS3 Physical Education is National Curriculum compliant. The KS2 curriculum in the local context is strong yet many learners arrive not KS3 ready; as evidenced during baseline lessons in Key Stage 3. Accelerated learning strategies and retrieval are used in the design of the KS3 curriculum so that learners have secure knowledge and skills to progress rapidly through KS3 and transition successfully into KS4.

The KS4 Physical Education curriculum enables access to social capital through the provision of the Tech Awards in BTEC Sport and BTEC Performing Arts Dance that enable progression to a large suite of post-16 courses within the Physical Education sector. Within these qualifications our aim is to deliver a high quality vocational experience for the learners, which is fully inclusive and caters for all needs of a mixed option group. The aim is to allow learners to develop their theoretical knowledge within our specialist subject areas and become specialists within the field. This includes careers advice and opportunities for learners to visit different places of work or educational institutions to enhance the learning experience. We aim to provide a learning environment which inspires and challenges learners to achieve the best grade possible at the end of the course and progress to their next level of further education.

Outside of the Physical Education curriculum, our vast extra-curricular programme is available to all learners. It can be used socially or competitively with all learners welcome. Competitive and recreational sporting fixtures compliment this strand of our Physical Education curriculum.

Breakdown of each year

Year 7:

The Year 7 curriculum is intended to give the learners as much variety as possible to their experience of Physical Activity, received through our pathway. It is the first opportunity to establish routine and lifetime habits with regards to physical activity e.g. suitable attire, warm up routines, safe practice and building on some basic competences across the different activities, building upon the basic skills that were introduced in KS2. This year is also used to assess (baseline) the learners in the Kepier Strands and teach the learners the importance of these strands and how Physical Education should not be purely about physical performance. The skills acquired here are needed to access the Year 8 curriculum and underpin further learning that will be developed as learners move into Year 8.

Year 8:

The Year 8 curriculum aims to further develop the practical skills that were introduced in the previous year, while introducing some ‘new activities’ into the pathway as well, providing opportunities for new experiences and to transfer skills previously learned from one activity to another. There is a focus on how tactics can be implemented through the skills previously studied, developing skills required for analysis ie identifying own strengths and weaknesses which can be linked into providing feedback for others too and encouraging others, while studying some key aspects of the KS4 curriculum ie effects of exercise, components of fitness and understanding what is meant by health, all through physical activity.

Year 9:

The Year 9 curriculum continues to develop physical competencies in the activities previously studied as there are activities in the pathways that have previously been taught in Year 7 and/or Year 8 – with the focus then being in applying these skills further with greater consistency/success and under greater pressure/match situations. These game based scenarios also allow learners to further develop their decision making process, again evaluating their own and team performance. There is a real focus on building resilience by challenging the learners through the activities setting targets for them to achieve (eg SMART Targets). There are elements built into this year journey that give an insight into the option process as well, with Dance being part of the Performing Arts subject and Leadership being part of Component 3 in the BTEC Technical Award in Sport. In addition to this there is a focus on the skills that are required to be successful if selecting one of our option subjects ie evaluation, analysis, feedback etc.

Year 10:

At this point, learners have now opted for their subjects to study at KS4 and the primary focus for this scheme is to promote lifelong participation by providing the learners with enjoyable experiences, arming them with the tools to allow them to participate in physical activity and exercise outside of school eg the principles of training, and promoting the ability to maintain the activity (whatever that activity may be) for a sustained period of time and the subsequent health benefits of that. Elements of the Option subjects are also incorporated to enhance learning so that those studying either course are given retrieval practice, while still exposing those who haven’t opted to many of the key aspects to physical activity and their health.

Year 11:

The primary focus of this pathway is to develop skills, through physical activity, that are required for the wider world e.g. in further education, the working world and within society. The second focus is to also instill (as it is in the previous years) and to encourage lifelong participation in sport and physical activity. The learners are awarded greater freedom and independence within lessons to allow them to take some greater responsibility for their own learning and ultimately find the activity they can engage in once leaving Kepier.
Across all of the year groups the focus is on participation and participation for all. We strive to teach the learners that there is more to sport than being a ‘player’ i.e. they could be an official, coach, leader etc. We promote extracurricular activity and offer a host of different activities to engage the learners so that exercise and being active outside of the classroom becomes habitual.