Intent

At Sythwood, we put a huge emphasis on children’s ownership of their health, fitness and well-being as we believe these are key for each child’s physical and emotional development as well as their mental wellbeing. We aim to encourage children to develop a love of sport through positive, engaging experiences during lesson time, playtimes and extra-curricular activities. Children are also given the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills in non-competitive and competitive situations as we feel this fosters cooperative behaviours as well as develop as a whole child to be resilient, confident and competent. Our high-quality PE curriculum inspires all children to succeed and excel at sport. The content covered in the curriculum builds character and helps to embed values such as fairness and respect so they can contribute positively not only to the well-being of the community, but also to wider society.

Our curriculum is designed in a way that sports are ‘grouped’, meaning key skills and compositional ideas are transferable making for an effective curriculum. Children’s development is continuous and progressive as key skills and language are constantly revisited through building on prior knowledge and applying what they know to increasingly challenging situations, this ensures they have the cultural capital and knowledge to fully succeed. Due to this constant repetition, the children are able to know and remember more. We are an inclusive school so teachers skilfully use a range of scaffolds so that our curriculum is accessible to all children; where children require more tailored support, we provide this in addition to their curriculum time. Lessons are taught with the aim for children to engage in sport for sustained periods of time. This is beneficial as it can provide an outlet for excess energy which, in turn, can increase engagement in lessons and academic achievement.

The Department for Education has identified sport as one of the five foundations for developing resilience, determination, building character and instilling positive values and virtues. At Sythwood, we understand that PE and sport is a key driver for our school motto and we celebrate sport in all its forms. An example of this is how teachers break down complex movement skills into manageable chunks which enables children to be the best they can be through focussed repetition. Weekly assessments, linked to lesson plan objectives, are completed. This means children’s progress can be monitored. KS2 are assessed via Sportfolio’s and KS1 are assessed via teacher observations. The most improved scores are celebrated termly in order to drive effort, fitness levels and allow children to be proud of their achievements and unique talents.

Curriculum Overview 

Please click below to see the overview of our PE curriculum.