PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Physical Education (PE) and Sport at Thames View Junior School.

A high-quality physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically-demanding activities. It should provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.

Wider school Aims and ethos

This policy supports our aim of developing the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform, with increasing competence and confidence, in a range of physical activities. These include dance, invasion games, cricket, racket sports, gymnastics, swimming, athletics and outdoor adventure activities. Physical education promotes an understanding in children of their bodies in action. It involves thinking, selecting and applying skills and promotes positive attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle. Thus we enable them to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives.

Our objectives in the teaching of PE follow those set out in the national curriculum and will enable children to:

• develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• be physically active for sustained periods of time
• engage in competitive sports and activities
• lead healthy, active lives.

Intent

In the borough of Barking and Dagenham, data shows that there are significant health problems associated with lifestyles / life choices with some children and some adults. In Barking and Dagenham 27.5 percent of children in reception and 40.6 percent of year six children are overweight or obese. Excess weight in the adult population is significantly worse with 68.4 percent of the adult population classed as overweight or obese. So our work to promote a love of sport and healthy lifestyles is crucial.

To do this:

• We will teach the National Curriculum in PE.
• We will enable children to develop fundamental movement skills with control and co-ordination.
• We will teach children to recognise and describe how their bodies feel after exercise.
• We will encourage enjoyment of PE through creative and challenging lessons.
• We will teach children how to evaluate their own and other successes including through competition outcomes.

Implementation:

At Thames View Junior School, we ensure each child has their PE entitlement of 2 hours per week by teaching one outdoor and one indoor PE session, averaged through the year.

We make sure that our PE planning is fully aligned to the National Curriculum and focuses on the development of agility, balance and coordination, healthy competition and cooperative learning in PE.

We incorporate ‘The Daily Mile’ into our timetable at least 3 times a week on average for our children, using our playing field.

Thames View offers a comprehensive range of extra-curricular activities that take place after school, with sports coaches from Premier Sports and teachers within the school.

Safe Practice

There are risk assessments in place for PE carried out in the hall and outside on the playground. Children must wear their hair tied back and remove all jewellery for PE. They wear trainers for outdoor PE and pumps or bare feet for indoors.

Teachers set a good example to the children by wearing full PE kit when teaching a PE lesson. There are qualified first aiders in school who are known to staff. Each teacher also keeps a record of children in their class with medical conditions which may affect their ability to participate.

Equal Opportunities and Inclusion

We teach PE to all children, whatever their ability race, gender or background to ensure children at our school receive a broad and balanced curriculum. Children are taught in mixed groups and activities are differentiated accordingly to enable every child to access the lesson and be appropriately challenged. Where children have specific disabilities or health conditions, the school ensures that they can take an active part in PE by modifying activities, equipment and/or providing adult support at necessary. Where possible, children who are not participating in PE for reasons of health are given a role so that they feel included and have an awareness of the objective for the session. Such a role could be a scorer, referee, evaluator, photographer or videographer or have responsibility for equipment.

Impact:

We help motivate children to participate in a variety of sports through quality teaching that is engaging and fun. From our lessons, our children learn to take responsibility for their own health and fitness, many of whom also enjoy the success of competitive sports. We equip our children with the necessary skills and a love of sport. They will hopefully grow up to live happy and healthy lives utilising the skills and knowledge acquired through PE. This has been recognised with the Bronze Games mark Award and considerable success in external competitions. As a school, we will be applying for the Silver Games Mark Award, this summer. These awards highlight the fantastic work that both the teachers and the children put into their PE lesson and extracurricular activities at Thames View.