Intent: Knowledge and the National Curriculum

Challenging, exciting, enjoyable and relevant

Our approach to the Physical Education Curriculum is taught discretely to ensure depth and rigour, whilst being underpinned by the accelerated learning approach to teaching and learning. The key concepts, principles and themes from the National Curriculum have been developed into a range of progressive content through which the children are helped to grow and develop to succeed in 21st century Britain. This sequential curriculum allows a creative way of teaching and learning, enabling us to deliver a more practical and engaging curriculum, which meets both the academic and pastoral needs of all our pupils. The progressive curriculum document support this and ensure that children are progressing upon previously taught skills each year.

The PE curriculum we offer is designed to meet the needs of all our pupils by providing purposeful contexts which engage our children. It is rich, varied, imaginative and ambitious and meets the needs of individual learners but can easily be adapted for pupils with additional needs. Through regular assessment, tasks are matched to the ability of each child through differentiated activities, providing a level of challenge that is stimulating for pupils.

The intent of our Physical Education curriculum is to provide a comprehensive and engaging physical education that develops pupils' competence and confidence across a wide range of physical activities. Our curriculum is designed to incorporate key concepts such as invasion games, striking and fielding, racket and net activities, athletics, dance, gymnastics and outdoor adventurous activities. While we aim to expose children to this diverse array of sports and activities, our fundamental emphasis is placed on physical development and the continuous improvement and refinement of both fine and gross motor skills from Nursery through to Year 6.

This approach emphasises the importance of developing pupils' knowledge and skills through PE, school sport and physical activity. Our curriculum is carefully sequenced to build upon prior learning, gradually increasing in complexity and challenge as pupils move through the school. We strive to develop not only physical skills but also important life skills such as teamwork, resilience and strategic thinking. By providing a broad and balanced PE curriculum, we aim to foster a lifelong love of physical activity, promote healthy lifestyles and equip our pupils with the knowledge and skills to make informed choices about their physical well-being beyond their primary years.

Additionally, we utilise the PE and sport premium funding to enhance our provision and improve access to sport and physical activity, as advised by the government.

At Summer Lane, we have developed a comprehensive range of sporting opportunities, in school, across schools and in extra-curricular groups such as: multi-sports, basketball, netball and cricket.

Our aim is to promote the application of acquired skills and the variety of competitions that our children are offered. This ensures lessons are relevant to the skills that children need to be working on in order to succeed in the sporting opportunities at the end of each half term.

Implementation: Accelerated Learning Cycle

Building progressively on taught skills

Physical Education is taught discretely and it is delivered to raise interest, self-esteem, creativity and aspirations of all our children. The curriculum is rich and varied, which provides our pupils with the skills required for life in the 21st Century. Within a lesson, a new skill is introduced, where learners have the time to practise this skill and then apply the skill to a game situation. This builds on the gather, skills, apply approach and delivery of lessons is taken across school to ensure children develop a deep understanding of specific skills and are able to apply these in a range of situations.

The Accelerated Learning Cycle, based on the work of Alastair Smith, is applied in all lessons. It stems from the idea of a supportive and challenging learning environment. The cycle has active engagement through multi-sensory learning, encourages the demonstrating understanding of learning in a variety of ways and the consolidation of knowing.

Ultimately, providing opportunities to allow children to be fit and healthy are at the heart of the PE curriculum offer that we provide to the children exploring a wide range of topics, to prepare them for life. This include: approved sporting competitions, extra-curricular sports clubs and residential stays.

These opportunities provided through school via our PE curriculum has inspired and developed a new generation of successful competitors both locally and nationally.

Our curriculum is designed with a core focus on retrieval practice, recognising its pivotal role in helping students know more and remember more. This intent is actualised through a dual approach: integrated retrieval within individual lessons and a structured, subject retrieval practice rota. In-session retrieval activities are carefully crafted to reinforce key concepts and knowledge, promoting immediate recall and application. Complementing this, our weekly retrieval practice rota systematically revisits content across various subjects, ensuring spaced repetition and interleaving of crucial information. This comprehensive strategy aims to strengthen neural connections, facilitate the transfer of knowledge to long-term memory and build increasingly complex mental models. By embedding retrieval practice as a fundamental aspect of our curriculum, we strive to enhance our pupils' ability to retain, recall and apply their learning effectively, thereby fostering deeper understanding and more robust academic progress.

Our curriculum is ambitious for all pupils, including those children with SEND. Curriculum designers and teachers have high expectations of what SEND pupils can achieve and the curriculum is not diluted or unnecessarily reduced for SEND pupils. Every pupil is different and so what works for each pupil varies. Pupil’s individual needs are considered and adaptations are planned to ensure the success of pupils in all subjects.

The way that our curriculum is designed ensures that chunks of learning are sequenced in a coherent way to enable all pupils, including those with SEND, to build on prior knowledge. Too much information at once can be a barrier to learning which is one of the reason why we have chosen half termly curriculum drivers.

Where pupils are identified with having complex needs, it may be appropriate to provide a personalised curriculum which will be based on individual needs and will retain ambition for the pupil.

Where working memory is an issue for pupils, including those with SEND, we look to reduce extraneous load as much as possible as well as identifying key information when teaching. This helps pupils to pay attention to the content which they are expected to learn. Adaptations to support individual pupils will be recorded on personal school support plans.

Pupils specific needs determine the types of adaptations which are required. These adaptations are in how the subject is taught rather than the content pupils are expected to learn. Where appropriate, learning will be chunked into smaller steps and pre learning and consolidation time in planned in to support need. Teachers may need to make adaptations to ensure that SEND learners can access the curriculum, such as adjusting equipment or allowing additional time. Time is also planned to ensure pupils with SEND are pre taught instructions and vocabulary to support their understanding.

Impact: Assessment

Knowing more, remembering more

Formative assessment is ongoing throughout each lesson. It judges progress and enables the teacher to make flexible adaptations to their planned teaching.

Through this regular ongoing assessment, tasks are matched to the ability of each child through adapted activities and including adult support, thus providing a level of challenge that is stimulating for pupils and questioning skills

Alongside formative assessment, the curriculum document for PE is regularly reviewed to identify any gaps or misconceptions to be addressed. This allows children to acquire complex skills that depends on the fundamentals of their prior knowledge in a well designed curriculum sequence.