Physical Education

Our PE curriculum is coherent, planned, sequenced, progressive, challenging, relevant to our context and meets the requirements of the National Curriculum from EYFS to year 6.

Our inclusive curriculum promotes equity and celebrates diversity, it is designed to respect the rights and dignity of every child enabling all children to reach their potential in a communication friendly environment.

Our Physical Education curriculum is designed to meet the context of our school. It equips our children with the knowledge, skills and attitude to master their learning in Physical Education and be confident learners now and for life.

Through the teaching of PE children will develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities. They are given the knowledge and skills of how to lead an active, healthy lifestyle and be able to sustain physical fitness. Our PE curriculum allows access to all children; it is progressive, competitive and provides challenge for all. It enables them to reflect and evaluate their team’s performance, as well as their own.

Children have the opportunity to access adventurous outdoor learning where they develop negotiating, problem solving and leadership skills. We also give the pupils the opportunity to become confident, competent swimmers.

In outdoor games, pupils develop knowledge of different games, along with tactics and have opportunities to develop their leadership skills. They are able to throw, catch and hit/kick and apply these skills to different settings.

Our dance curriculum is creative and allows pupils to express their ideas freely. They show fluency of movement from phrase to phrase and apply different elements of movement to their dances, as well as using the rhythm in the music.

In gym, pupils have opportunities to show and develop their strength and flexibility through balances, rolls and stretches, either on apparatus or through floorwork.

Aims and Objectives

The aims of PE are to ensure that pupils:

• develop competence and mastery to excel in a broad range of physical activities.
• are physically active for sustained periods of time
• engage in competitive sports and activities
• enjoy physical activity
• know how to lead a healthy and active lifestyle in order to help them lead healthy, active lives.
• increase their ability to use what they have learnt to improve the quality and control of their performance
• recognise and describe how their bodies feel during exercise;
• develop an enjoyment of physical activity through creativity, expression and imagination
• work as a team and develop leadership skills over time
• develop an understanding in children of how to succeed in a range of physical activities and how to evaluate their own success.

At St Paul’s, we believe in providing a holistic physical education that extends far beyond standard lesson times. While we use the highly acclaimed Get Set 4 PE platform to plan and deliver a broad, balanced, core curriculum, we proudly go above and beyond this framework to offer a deeply enriched physical experience.

Going Above and Beyond: Our Enhanced PE Offer

To ensure our pupils have every opportunity to shine, build resilience, and live healthy lives, we enrich our core PE curriculum with:

• Competitive Sports & Tournaments: Pupils regularly enter local school competitions, testing their skills in competitive, supportive environments.
• Global Sporting Celebrations: We bring the excitement of the world stage to our school by celebrating major world sporting events to inspire a lifelong love of fitness.
• Weekly Swimming Lessons: All pupils in Year 3 and Year 4 attend weekly swimming sessions to develop vital water safety skills, confidence, and stroke techniques.
• Outdoor Residentials: Children participate in adventurous outdoor residentials, conquering new physical challenges, building independence, and mastering teamwork.
• Active Lunch and Playtimes: We provide structured, active playtimes every day. Staff lead planned activities that give pupils dedicated opportunities to practice, embed, and play with the physical skills they learn in lessons.
• After school sports clubs: We offer tailored clubs for each year groups (reception in the summer term) for pupils to discover passions, refine skills and stay active outside the classroom.