Physical Education at St Maria Goretti

SMG PESSPA Intent 

At St Maria Goretti Primary School, are intent is to engage, motivate and inspire our children to develop a lifelong love of Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity (PESSPA).

At SMG we follow the national curriculum as a guide for Physical Education and aim to ensure that all pupils:

• Develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities
• Are physically active for sustained periods of time
• Engage in competitive sports and activities
• Lead healthy and active lives

We recognise the importance that a strong and aspirational Physical Education curriculum can have on raising our children's physical capabilities as well as enhancing their characters. We want to give children positive experiences and enable them to achieve personal successes through PE.

Our PE curriculum is based on our mission statement ‘Shining with God’s love, pride and success’. We intend to use PE as tool for our children to embody this mission statement.

We aim to provide fun, high-quality Physical Education that inspires all pupils to excel individually and in collaboration with others in non-competitive and competitive activities. Through PE we intend to inspire all pupils to have skills that support them holistically now and in later.

We aim to deliver the recommended 2 hours of curriculum physical education to all our children and we follow the Lancashire PE advisory recommended planning and assessment tool through the online PE Passport platform (App and website) as a start point for our PE delivery.

Our yearly PE curriculum overview is devised and adapted by our PE subject leader in consultation with class teachers and our pupil voice.  All content is age/ability appropriate to both fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for Physical Education, and to provide experiences that engage, inspire and motivate all our children.

PE Whole School Overview of Coverage 2023-24

SMG PESSPA Implementation

All teaching for PE is currently delivered either by our class teachers or subject leader across the school. 

We continue allocate a healthy percentage of our PE and Sport premium funding to curriculum PE each year and are always looking to ensure our delivery is of high quality and fully sustainable.

Our Lancashire PE advisory scheme of work has been adapted progressively through teaching experience and continues to be so each year to meet the changing needs of our children.

Teaching and learning is carefully considered, mapped out and sequenced through each Key Stage in order to ensure coverage of skills and clear progression which follow the Lancashire Progress of Skills document for guidance.

We recognise that PE teaching may need repetition and repetition of skills, knowledge and understanding to consolidate and therefore Fundamental Movement Skills are repeated through year groups especially in EYFS, KS1 and early even KS2 until pupils are confident and hopefully achieve mastery. This enables children to progressively develop and reinforce their understanding of Physical Education in order to improve their performance throughout their PE journey at school.

EYFS are taught PE weekly by the class teacher and/or subject leader and also have continuous access and provision to areas set up to build on their learning in PE and meet the physical development Early Learning Goal.

In KS1, PE is delivered by experienced class teachers with support and guidance of the PE subject leader. The children build upon the Fundamental Skills from Early Years and there are clear links between EYFS and Year 1/Year 2 PE as the children aim to fully secure the 10 FMS whilst furthering their journey in PE.

Our KS2 approach and implementation  has been split into lower and upper Key Stage, this enables children to develop and implement those skills from KS1 and begin to apply some of them in small sided modified games in early KS2.

In Key Stage 2, we continue to introduce both co-operative and competitive practices/games as part of PE implementation and increase the range of activities further incorporating new sports as per the needs and wants of our children. The focus remains on personal best and everyone improving within each lesson.

Children in KS2 also take part in a 2 intensive blocks of swimming lessons currently in year 5 and 6 as we aim to prioritise this part of the National Curriclum.

Our teaching always ensures our children build upon the skills they learned in the previous year and the children are able to make links in their learning from unit to unit and year to year.

We offer ongoing CPD internally to staff through our subject leader and seek out any/every opportunity to enhance our teaching of PE through consultation, membership and continued shared good practise within the Preston PESSPA partnership, opportunities offered through communication with the Preston School Games organiser and affiliation with PNE Community Trust and other local organisations.

Throughout Physical Education lessons, pupils are consistently active and learning physical skills, they are given opportunities to apply theses skills and also have a focus in each lesson to enhance different character values through physical education.

Pupils learn through a range of, and take part in, different sports and activities throughout their SMG PE journey. This increases their knowledge and understanding on the rules and tactics involved in each game and helps them also learn to transfer skills and learning to each sport/discipline.

Physical Education lessons cover dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics and outdoor adventure activities as per the National Curriculum.

Leading an active and healthy lifestyle is at the heart of our Physical Education teaching and learning, and this is promoted throughout school in various parts of our curriculum as well as in PE. We also encourage all children to have at least 30 active minutes per day through different activities such as brain breaks, active lessons and outdoor learning. 

Teachers now use the PE Passport to record children’s assessments in each unit of PE. A child's passport follows their journey through SMG Primary school. The subject leader and teachers are able to adapt planning from and use these ongoing assessments to focusing on particular areas of developments for each cohort.

Teachers are able to refer to the Physical Education progression of skills document (Year 1 to Year 6) and EYFS Early Learning Goals when making judgements. This document breaks down the National Curriculum objective statements and supports teachers when assessing pupil progress. We monitor and assess children’s learning throughout each PE lesson.

Throughout PE lessons children are actively involved in their own self assessment and progress, teachers provide ‘in-the-moment’ feedback and support.

We strive to include all children of differing abilities in Physical Education and provision is made for SEND children in the school. Support staff are fully engaged and play an active role in PE lessons, supporting all or our children.

SMG PESSPA Impact

We believe our children are engaged, motivated and happy when it comes to Physical Education. Many children would choose PE as their favourite subject at SMG as per pupil voice surveys 2022 and 2023.

The impact of our Physical Education curriculum can be measured and monitored in a variety of different ways including; learning walks or observations, PE Passport assessment tool, PE leader data analysis and reporting and pupil interviews. It is the responsibility of the subject leader to triangulate this evidence to ensure consistency across the whole school.

We aim for all our children to have secured age-related skills and knowledge before they leave our school and progress to KS3 however recognise that in all learning our children’s progress and attainment is individualised and we aim to help them be at their personal best.

All assessment data is used to inform future curriculum planning, outlining how support/challenge can be provided to meet the needs of our pupils.

We are continually seeking to raise the profile of Physical Education in school by ensuring that we celebrate participation and success and offer a huge range of opportunities for all of our children in curriculum and extracurricular time.

We attended 50+ PE/sporting events on offer in Preston throughout the academic year of 2022/23 and entered all extracurricular leagues in a variety of sports. Winning the leagues in hockey, cricket and netball and competitions in gymnastics and mini-skills. 

We run extra-curricular sporting clubs throughout the year before school, at lunchtimes, and as after school clubs which are organised to support targeted children.

Our children are now going to high school with a love of PE and many of our past pupils are now involved in sporting teams at high school level and outside of school.

We have achieved the Gold School Games PESSPA accreditation for our intent, implementation and impact in PESSPA over the past 3 qualifying windows.

We believe we are equipping our children with the ability to successfully prepare for a healthy and physical life ahead in which they can make informed choices about healthy lifestyles. In addition to this we believe our children to be knowledgeable about healthy eating, team building and resilience in the wider world.

SMG School Sport

The quality and profile of Sport at SMG is very high and continues to grow.

Our sporting intent is to give EVERY child in school the chance to represent their school through sporting competitions throughout each key stage in multiple sports if possible. With this in mind we aim to enter all events on offer this year in the Preston PESSPA sporting calendar.

Take a look at the School Sport page at https://www.smgprimary.co.uk/school-sport/ to find out more about our sporting participation and ongoing sporting highlights.

Physical Activity

We believe in integrating physical activity across our curriculum and school day. According to the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of a Child, all children have the right to play. At SMG we believe it is every child’s right to access Physical Activity through play and through our daily routines and curriculum. Physical activity keeps both the mind and body healthy and plays an important part in every day life at SMG.

Sports Premium Funding

Physical Education is also a key ingredient in the battle against childhood obesity and encouraging young people to live active and healthy lives. It was for this reason that the government announced in March 2013 that all primary schools would be receiving a sum of money known as the ‘Sports Premium’.

With this in mind, the PE Leader and senior leadership team carry out an extensive and ongoing reviews of our current PESSPA provision against the 5 Key indicators, to plan the use of the Sports Premium allocated to St Maria Goretti Primary School as well as possible for all our children now and in the future. Please see the tab above for details of our sports premium spending.