At Croxby Primary School, WE ARE PHYSICALLY ACTIVE! 

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 inspired to be personal trainers, nutritionists, sports journalists or gold medal winners. 

At Croxby Primary School, our vision for PE is to foster a lasting passion for physical activity, sports, and physical education amongst our students. We are dedicated to nurturing a lifelong commitment to staying active and healthy amongst our pupils, ensuring they develop essential skills like leadership and teamwork that will benefit them in all aspects of life. Our curriculum is designed to provide comprehensive coverage of the PE National Curriculum for both KS1 and KS2, encompassing indoor and outdoor activities. In KS1, we focus on building fundamental skills that serve as the foundation for more specialised sports in KS2. Each lesson is crafted to offer every child the opportunity to enhance their PE skills, understand the importance of health and fitness, engage in competition and performance, and reflect on their progress. We strive to make learning accessible and inclusive for all students, ensuring that each child can thrive and grow. 

Our lessons deliver modern, high-quality teaching and learning opportunities for all areas of the PE National Curriculum. With a structured lesson sequence, we always consider prior learning, embedding opportunities for retrieval and practice within our lessons. This framework not only establishes revision as a fundamental aspect of good practice but also facilitates the deepening of children's knowledge, skills, and understanding in PE.  

Key Stage two children will have the opportunity to enter one of our inter-academy competitions across three different themes: engage, develop or compete. These themes have been designed to ensure inclusivity across our sporting competitions.  

The impact of this curriculum design will lead to outstanding progress over time across key stages relative to a child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills. 

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT CHILDREN HAVE LEARNT? 

• Questioning 

• Pupil Study (talking about learning with the children) 

• Talking to teachers 

• Low stakes ‘Drop-in’ observations 

• Retrieval practise 

• Live feedback 

We ensure learners acquire comprehensive knowledge and skills spanning the entire PE curriculum, presented in engaging and age-appropriate content. At Croxby, our commitment to delivering high-quality PE teaching, complemented by First Steps Sports coaches, has led to significant improvements in attainment levels in PE. This positive impact is reflected in the heightened profile of sport, PE, and physical activity throughout the school. By incorporating technical PE vocabulary into everyday discourse, we strive to create a consistent learning environment across both key stages, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for physical education amongst all learners. 

Here is the PE long-term overview

EARLY YEARS  

The Physical Development area of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, and carefully planned provision, are designed to support children’s physical development through our teaching of gross and fine motor skills. We offer daily playful opportunities for children to engage in physical activity both in and outdoors. Our children have access to free-flow play for sustained periods of time and are encouraged to use our large outdoor environment, including our urban forest, mud kitchen, water wall and large sandpit. We access this environment all year round and in all weather conditions to support the development of control, balance, coordination, confidence and problem-solving skills. We explore meditation, yoga and relaxation techniques and share a range of healthy snacks to develop our understanding of the importance of a balanced and healthy lifestyle.   

Our skilled early years practitioners encourage our children to move creatively and energetically through crawling, climbing, walking and running with increasing control over their movements and direction. Our children are motivated to think deeper about their movement choices through answering questions about their actions.  

We support children by asking questions about their movement preferences, where they can practise certain skills and how they can use their physical movements to help them to achieve certain goals that they have set for themselves. We raise questions such as, ‘Which is the best place in the unit to play ball games? Why?’, ‘Tell, me, what do I need to do to move the scooter? Which parts of my body do I need to use?’, ‘Can you show me how you try to catch the big ball?’ ‘Do you do the same thing when you try to catch the small ball?’, ‘How does our body change when we exercise?’, ‘Can you show me different ways of travelling around your environment? Which is your favourite and why?’, ‘Tell me, how do I get started on the bike?’, ‘How can we move to get out of breath?’ and ‘Tell me, what do we need to do to keep our bodies healthy?’ 

KEY STAGE 1  

In Key Stage 1, our aim is for students to develop fundamental movement skills, enhancing their competence and confidence while accessing a wide array of opportunities to refine agility, balance, and coordination, both independently and collaboratively. We foster an environment where students can engage in competitive and cooperative physical activities, navigating increasingly challenging scenarios. 

Our curriculum ensures that students are equipped to: 

• Master essential movements such as running, jumping, throwing, and catching, while also honing balance, agility, and coordination, applying these skills across various activities. 

• Engage in team sports, where they learn basic tactics for both offence and defence. 

• Explore the art of dance, experimenting with simple movement patterns to express themselves creatively. 

• Through these teachings, we empower our students to embrace physical challenges, develop vital skills, and cultivate a lifelong love for active participation. 

KEY STAGE 2  

In Key Stage 2, we encourage students to continue advancing and diversifying their skill sets, exploring different ways to utilise them and linking them to create fluid sequences of movement. We foster an environment where students communicate, collaborate, and compete with their peers. Through this, they cultivate an understanding of how to enhance their performance in various physical activities and sports, while learning to evaluate and acknowledge their own progress. 

Our curriculum focuses on teaching students to: 

• Utilise running, jumping, throwing, and catching both individually and in combination. 

• Engage in modified competitive games such as badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders, and tennis, applying fundamental principles for both attack and defence. 

• Develop flexibility, strength, technique, control, and balance through activities like athletics and gymnastics. 

• Express themselves through dance, exploring a range of movement patterns. 

• Participate in outdoor and adventurous activities, both independently and as part of a team. 

• Reflect on their performances, comparing them to previous ones, and striving for personal improvement to achieve their best. 

Furthermore, swimming instruction is an integral part of our curriculum, ensuring that all students: 

• Swim competently, confidently, and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 meters. 

• Effectively use a range of strokes such as front crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke. 

• Demonstrate safe self-rescue techniques in various water-based situations.