Physical Education at Florence Melly

Physical Education Curriculum Rationale 

At Florence Melly 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: “if you can DREAM it, you can do it”. 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! Earlier this year, some of our Year 6 pupils were given the VIP treatment when they set off for the Wirral to watch a special cycling event – the Tour of Britain. The children used the train to get to Birkenhead Park (the park that provided inspiration for Central Park in New York) where the event was held. They enjoyed chatting to stall holders about road safety and watching the professionals zoom around on their expensive bicycles. The national event piqued their interest in cycling with many of our pupils choosing to cycle to school on the back of this wonderful enrichment trip. Bringing physical education alive is important at Florence Melly Community 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. For example, in the spring term, Year 6 children visited the Merseyside Rowing Club as part of our quest to subject our pupils to as many different sporting disciplines as possible. Children were shown around the club, received an expert talk and met the Liverpool John Moore’s University ladies rowing first team, giving them a gentle push off into the dock. To further demonstrate our commitment to providing broader experiences of a range of sports and activities we offered extra-curricular judo and fencing clubs  – something we have never offered in our school before. The clubs were oversubscribed and the children were fascinated by the specialist assemblies we provided to introduce them to the disciplines. 

 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, earlier this year we explored ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ as part of a whole-school themed week. Some of our lucky pupils attended an event at Anfield which was hosted by Liverpool F.C. The children discussed issues in modern society and the staff commented how mature and thoughtful their contributions were. The children listened to emotive recounts from professional footballers about their experiences of racism.

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, nine lucky pupils had the opportunity of a lifetime earlier this year when they were able to meet and greet the Liverpool and Chelsea players ahead of the League Cup match at Anfield. As part of the partnership with Red Neighbours, the children got to see some of their idols up close as they welcomed the teams to the ground, before being whisked up to the comfort of a hospitality lounge to watch the big game. Despite the result, the children had an amazing evening and will remember this experience for a very long time. 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

In July 2018, a complete audit of the PE curriculum was conducted. On the back of the findings from this audit, 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 4, Year 5 and Year 6 and expert yoga sessions for all pupils across the school.

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 empower our staff to organise their own year group curriculums under the guidance of our subject leaders. Teachers are best placed to make these judgements. Staff develop year group specific long-term curriculum maps which identify when the different subjects and topics will be taught across the academic year. The vast majority of subjects are taught discretely but staff make meaningful links across subjects. They link prior knowledge to new learning to deepen children’s learning. For example, during our cultural diversity whole-school themed week, pupils in Year 5 explored and created their very own Maori Haka as part of their dance topic. Our children are taught the right, connected knowledge.

Our short-term plans are produced on a weekly and daily basis. We use these to set out the learning objectives for each lesson, identifying engaging activities and resources which will be used to achieve them.

We encourage staff to teach a weekly PE lesson. This was a notable change after the PE audit. 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 and short-term interventions. 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. A comprehensive monitoring cycle is developed at the beginning of each academic year. This identifies when monitoring is undertaken. 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 Florence Melly Community Primary School, we are ATHLETES!

Key Documentation

Please use the links below which set out the vibrant PE curriculum on offer to our pupils.

	Flo		Flo
PE Curriculum Map		Characteristics of an Athlete		PE Curriculum Milestones

 

Latest PE Activities

Check out just some of the wonderful activities our children get up to in PE. Please visit our Twitter and Flickr feeds for more fantastic activities.

	Flo		Flo
Gymnastics Competition		Cross-Country Running		Sports Day Celebrations
Handball Competition		Tour of Britain Cycling Event		Curling with the LFC Foundation

Physical Education programmes of study: Key Stages 1 and 2

Purpose of study