Intent

At John Shelton Primary School, we recognise that physical activity and sport are essential components to children’s development.  
 
We are committed to delivering a PE curriculum that: 

• provides children with a wide range of physical opportunities, in hope that every child will discover a love of sport and be inspired to embrace an active lifestyle beyond primary school. 

• equips our pupils with the knowledge (including key vocabulary), skills, and attitudes necessary to develop physically, building upon previous learning with clear progression. 

• promotes inclusion and ensures that every child has equal opportunities to succeed. 

• is ambitious and encourages children to enjoy healthy competition against themselves or their peers and celebrates both individual and team successes. 

• reinforces our school values of respect, resilience and responsibility through teamwork. 

Implementation

The children in our nursery are guaranteed at least an hour of physical play each day through a range of structured and unstructured experiences. Our nursery recognises the importance of children developing their fundamental movement skills from an early age. 

The children in our Reception receive one hour of formal PE teaching per week set out by the scheme we subscribe to, ‘Get Set 4 PE’. In addition to this, our specialist trained EYFS staff create daily opportunities for children to develop their gross and fine motor skills through exploration and play.  

Throughout KS1 and KS2, our curriculum ensures that children receive two hours of PE per week, regularly co-delivered by a multi-qualified coach and class teacher. They provide children with high quality PE teaching through a skills-based approach. Across the academic year, children have opportunities to improve knowledge, refine skills and form positive attitudes in a range of sporting contexts. The inclusion of chosen sports has been carefully considered by the subject leader and sports coach to best suit our children. The curriculum includes a balanced mix of net and wall, striking and fielding and invasion games. In addition to this, our children have regular experiences in dance, gymnastics, yoga and OAA throughout their time in primary school. Children in lower KS2 are fortunate to receive a substantial swimming provision, in which they attend regular instructor-led sessions across three school terms. Progression between year groups is ensured by our chosen scheme which is followed and adapted where needed to ensure lessons are both inclusive and competitive. Children’s attainment and progress in PE is monitored by their teachers, against a series of assessment statements. Where possible, significant and continuous non-achievers in lessons are supported through bespoke intervention sessions, led by the PE coach. 

At John Shelton, we are ambitious and allow children to have the opportunity to be competitive by attending as many external city-wide competitions as possible. We also ensure that all children have to opportunity to represent their house at various points during the year, culminating in a competitive sports day during Summer Term, which focuses on our values of respect, resilience and responsibility. We are proud to deliver a sports day that not only is inclusive and celebrates success, but importantly is a fun and memorable day for children, staff and parents.

Impact

The introduction of our new curriculum in the 2023-24 academic year, has given children at John Shelton much broader, deeper and ambitious experiences in PE than previously. As a result of this, pupil voice has highlighted that most children now know more, can do more and remember more from their learning. By co-delivering lessons and using support staff more effectively, we can see that there is an improvement in the active participation of children during PE, compared to previous monitoring.  

Our strong provision across EYFS and KS1, with a focus on fundamental movement skills has ensured that children’s physical development is in line with where we would expect it to be by the end of each year.  

Additionally, the improved PE provision in school has led to a greater uptake and participation in the after-school clubs we provide. The links that we have created with local community-based teams and development programmes has also led to more children being regularly engaged in sport outside of school. We aim to continue to promote sport outside of the school day, to ensure we deliver on our intent of inspiring children to embrace an active lifestyle beyond primary school.  

Through fostering and celebrating high level team and individual performance in PE, we have enjoyed relative success on a city-wide scale in recent years, competing respectably against much larger schools.