Physical Education Curriculum

Why do we teach Physical Education

Our PE curriculum has been designed to build on a range of skills that will give our children the knowledge and confidence to support a physically active and healthy lifestyle. We aim to inspire our pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sports and other physically demanding activities during their time with us and beyond. As with other subjects at Bluecoat Primary, knowledge and skills in PE are introduced in small steps to enable children to develop fluency and depth of knowledge that allows them to feel confident applying skills in a range of circumstances. In addition to delivering the physical skills and knowledge required, we also aim to equip our children with the social and character building skills that will embed our Christian values in sporting activities and wider school life. This will equip them with the skills to make a positive start to their secondary education.

Our curriculum focuses on play above all things. Through play and games, children learn and apply the skills needed to make them physically literate members of our community. Individual sports still play a role in our curriculum, but do not form the basis of individual units – experiences in various sports are interwoven into the relevant strands of our PE curriculum. Within fundamental movement, sending and receiving and attacking and defending, children take part in games that cover the full breadth of sports: invasion games, net and wall games and striking and fielding games. Throughout their time at Bluecoat Primary, our pupils will access the following strands in an age-appropriate manner:

• Fundamental movement – learning to control your body with confidence, including running, jumping, balancing, and developing agility and coordination.
• Sending and receiving – learning to catch, throw, pass and control a variety of different objects.
• Attacking and defending – learning to apply movement, sending and receiving skills within different games and developing tactical strategies.
• Gymnastics – developing flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance.
• Dance – developing dance specific skills involving movement, including repetition and reacting to stimuli.
• Athletics – learning to run, jump and throw with precision, control and fluency.
• Outdoor and adventurous activities – developing a range of orientation and problem solving skills.
• Swimming – learning to swim competently and be safe in the water.

Throughout our PE curriculum, there is a focus on developing the character and social skills that enable our children to flourish as human beings in the community. In order to prepare our pupils for the wider world, the following strands will also run through the curriculum, with each unit focusing on one or two skills from the strand:

At the end of each unit, children take part in intra-class competition based on the games/sports practiced learned that term. This enables them to experience competition within a familiar team during their primary education and gives them the opportunity to apply physical, tactical, social and psychological skills practised in lessons. Children are grouped in the same team colours throughout their time in school and contribute to the whole school sports championship, which culminates in Sports Day in the summer term.

For further information regarding our PE curriculum, please contact our PE Subject Leader, Mr Summersby.