Physical Education

Intent – What do we want children to learn?

Our PE Intent at Birchwood

At Birchwood, we want every child, regardless of their needs, to develop a passion for Physical Education (PE). We aim for children to:

• Build strong physical skills (technical proficiency)

• Enjoy and take part in both competitive and non-competitive sports

• Lead a healthy and active lifestyle

What this means in practice:

• Technical Proficiency
  Children will learn how to move safely and correctly. They’ll develop key skills like throwing, catching, and running, and understand how these skills change depending on the sport (e.g. catching a netball vs. a rounders ball). They will also be able to name and describe movements using the correct vocabulary.

• Enjoying All Types of Sport
  Pupils will know the rules, strategies, and techniques for different sports. They’ll understand when and how to use tactics like attacking or defending, and apply them confidently during games.

• Living a Healthy Life
  Children will understand how physical activity supports their health. They’ll learn the benefits of exercise and how to improve their own fitness through regular participation.

How We Support Learning in PE

We believe children learn best when lessons are well-sequenced and key knowledge and skills are regularly revisited. This helps them build deep understanding, not just in PE but across the curriculum.

Our PE Progression of Skills documents (available on our website) show how children develop their skills from EYFS to Year 6. These were created with input from subject specialists and include training to help teachers deliver high-quality PE lessons with confidence.

Implementation – How are we going to achieve our intent?

All classes take part in a minimum of 2 hours of National Curriculum PE, School Sport and Physical Activity per week. There are many other ways that are used to complement and reinforce the importance of movement and exercise. For examples:

* the class ‘2km a day’

* break and lunch time play equipment/ Play Leader sessions

* Forest School time

* Residential/non-residential educational visits

* Masterclasses

* Garden Gang

* A wide range of extracurricular opportunities.

As required in the National Curriculum, we teach dance, games and gymnastics at Key Stage 1, with the addition of athletics and OAA. In Key Stage 2, we teach dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, Outdoor and Adventurous Activities (OAA) and athletics.

The curriculum is planned so there is/are:

• Coverage of different forms of movement, applying in varying contexts, and that these develop in complexity
• Similar and contrasting activities selected and taught to enable elements of transfer of flexible knowledge, revisiting and development of key concepts and content
• Accurate motor movement knowledge mastered in isolation prior to ‘performance’ of knowledge in a pressurised situation
• Clearly identified movement pattern knowledge takes pupils beyond the knowledge they would be exposed to at home
• Increasingly complex motor movements taught
• Fundamental movement skills that form the foundation of many sporting movements
• Progression of generic skills such as resilience, character and teamwork
• New content is explicitly linked to prior learning

At Birchwood, our PE curriculum is carefully structured around key vocabulary, concepts, and processes that run consistently throughout each year group. As children progress through the school, their understanding deepens, and they are increasingly challenged to apply what they’ve learned across different sports and activities.

We plan our curriculum in three stages: long-term, medium-term, and short-term. The long-term plan outlines the activities covered each term, the medium-term plan breaks down how each unit is structured, and the short-term plan gives detailed lesson-by-lesson guidance. Each unit is long enough to give pupils time to learn new skills, remember them, and improve. We believe that while variety is motivating, it must be balanced with enough time for pupils to develop real confidence and competence in what they’re learning.

Our subject lead has created a bespoke Progression of Skills Grid that aligns the national curriculum with our school’s unique Wheel of Wisdom approach. This planning tool ensures that key vocabulary is introduced and revisited, that learning connects across subjects, and that assessment opportunities are built in. Teachers use the grid to adapt their planning when assessments highlight specific areas for development—for example, when striking and fielding became a focus in summer 2021.

Lessons are designed to build on children’s prior learning. All children, regardless of ability, are supported to develop their knowledge, understanding, and skills. As they move through the school, the level of challenge increases, ensuring continued progress.

We use a wide variety of teaching styles in PE to keep lessons engaging and meaningful. These include whole-class teaching, group work, paired activities, and individual tasks. Teachers highlight strong examples of performance to model success and encourage all children to reflect on and improve their own work. Children learn to think critically, discuss tactics, analyse movement, and explain their reasoning confidently. They are given opportunities to work together, but also to compete in a way that focuses on personal progress, effort, and challenge—not just winning.

In every year group, teachers make sure that PE is inclusive. Lessons are adapted or personalised to meet the needs of all children, including those with specific learning, developmental, health, or therapeutic goals. We provide meaningful opportunities for every child to succeed in PE by ensuring the curriculum is flexible and responsive to individual needs.

We may:

• set common tasks that are open-ended and can have a variety of results (e.g. timed events, such as an 80m sprint);

• set tasks of increasing difficulty, where not all children complete all tasks (e.g. deep-water swimming);

• group children by ability, and setting different tasks for each group (e.g. masterclass provision, SEND Panathlon);
• provide challenge through the provision of different resources (e.g. different gymnastics equipment, scarves to assist catching, batting tees etc).

Impact – What will it look like when we have achieved our intent?

There are literally hundreds of ways we can demonstrate the excellent impact our curriculum design has on our pupils. In a nutshell, here are some examples:

1 -A significant use of the Sports funding allocated to the school has been used to establish a masterclass program at three tiers of ability:

* the talented

* those meeting expectations

* those vulnerable to not keeping up.

The program involves initial talent identification. Personalised learning plans are written. Termly reports are shared with parents (including bespoke PE parent consultations). Family learning together sessions increase awareness. Collaborative masterclass work with other schools raise levels of challenge.  “The ‘masterclasses’ that many pupils take part in for tennis, for example, not only demonstrate the variety of activities that pupils experience, but also the amazing outcomes that they are capable of” (OFSTED).  Over the last year, the masterclass program (detailed above) saw 96% make expected progress and 100% achieving EXS with 57% reaching GDS.

2 – The school offers a broad range of extra curricular provision: boys & girls football, running, street dance, netball, basketball, start to move, rugby, volleyball, athletics, tennis, Birchwood Boot Camp, cricket, multi sports, gardening, gymnastics and cycling to name a few!  Curriculum time ‘taster sessions’ promote interest (the increasing ‘take up’ statistics show this has been a real success).  Intra School Competitions introduce the children to ‘competing’ against those they know. Inter School Competitions see pupils compete against other schools, at local, regional and national level.  Teams represent the majority of the ‘clubs’ mentioned above. Additional entries are made into ‘friendly’ tournaments. Pupils compete and represent Birchwood nationally eg – national gymnastics floor champion, national ballroom champion, national squash champion. Over the last 6 years, utilising the Sports Funding to subsidise the clubs, we have seen a very high uptake of pupils engaged in extra-curricular clubs e.g. 2019 pre Covid 96% of all pupils took up at least 1 extra-curricular club. Despite 2 terms of restricted ‘bubbled year group only’ clubs 2021-22, we are delighted that 81% took up at least 1 extra-curricular club and 52% attended more than 1 opportunity. 88% of pupils in the school participate in ‘organised’ sport provision outside of school time. A book mark of pupils’ names that haven’t attended an extra curricular sports club over an academic year is given to the Play Leaders at lunchtimes. They seek to harness their engagement in physically active lunchtime activities.

3 – It is widely recognised that Obesity is a serious health concern for children living in the UK. Government findings suggest the problem begins early. Excess weight is gained before a child starts school. 22% of Reception aged children are overweight or obese across England. 34% of Y6 children are overweight or obese across England according to 2020 PHE measures. Once established, obesity tracks through childhood and adolescence. This is a major concern as being overweight or obese is associated with adverse health outcomes both in the short and long term. It can have adverse effects on educational attainment and lifetime achievement.  Improving dietary choices and increasing activity levels are key to this agenda… Physical Activity is a ‘Birchwood Bolt’.

Physical Activity is an inherent part of our school ethos. Alongside the other three Bolts (Forest School, Plot to Plate and Pupil Voice), children are encouraged and supported to make healthy lifestyle choices. Pupil voice initiatives encourage every child to seek out more ways to lead a healthy lifestyle:

* child designed class 2km a day

* our ‘get active’ poster campaign

* Play leaders

* Garden Gang, Chicken Monitors and Head Gardeners nurture of healthy produce for our school lunches etc

“Pupils and staff talk highly about their experiences and share the importance of PESSPA and how it improves their physical health and mental well-being” AfPE findings July ’22.

Team GB sailor, Saskia Clark, delivered an inspirational assembly addressing the benefits of eating healthy food and exercising. Saskia talked to the pupils about her experience of the Olympics and took them through her challenging training regime.

Team GB discus thrower, Bill Tancred, delivered a motivational assembly inspiring us to play sport, specialise in sport, accept and overcome disappointments by working hard. Bill talked about discovering he was good at throwing on Felixstowe beach and how his hard work ended up giving him opportunities to compete around the world, including in the Olympics.

More information about Birchwood’s PE and Physical Activity work can be found by following these links…

• PE and Sport Premium

• School of Sporting Success

• Sports Crew