Intent

At TGMS, we recognise that physical education (PE) and sport are essential parts of a child’s everyday life and are a key factor in their future physical and mental wellbeing. We want every child to find enjoyment in physical activity and aim to provide them with a wide range of opportunities so that they can discover the right kind of activity for themselves and experience the benefits that an active lifestyle provides. We aim to present them with opportunities to compete against themselves and others, to work in partnerships and teams, to build self-confidence and perseverance and the real sense of achievement that this particular aspect of a child’s education provides. We aim to prepare and support pupils towards a healthy and active lifestyle for their future.

Swimming is an important life skill and, as such, we aspire for all children to leave primary school being able to swim at least 25 metres.

Implementation

We are lucky at TGMS that we not only have the expertise of our active and engaging teachers, but we also have dedicated and experienced PE teachers from Complete Sports who come into our school weekly to teach our children and train our staff. Our pupils receive the government recommendation of two hours of PE every week, where a positive attitude to physical activity is created and expectations are reinforced that all children can achieve success across the broad spectrum of sports and games.

Through an engaging and exciting PE curriculum, our children achieve the following:

• Adopt an active lifestyle and understand the benefits it provides
• Learn, practise and secure a range of sporting skills across the national curriculum, including swimming
• Are physically active for sustained periods of time
• Engage in a range of competitive sports and activities
• Experience success and gain self-confidence
• Lead healthy, active lives
• Understand the importance and effect of exercise and being healthy
• Develop a sense of fair play and a positive sporting attitude
• Develop resilience, perseverance and teamwork skills, whilst having fun at the same time

Additional events are a key part of the learning process, ensuring children are given the opportunity to practise skills and develop previous learning experiences; these include our annual sports day, external sporting events (such as Wye Valley) and various sports carousels run by our Year 5 and 6 children, developing their leadership and collaborative skills.

We are very fortunate to have a swimming pool onsite, which our Year 3 pupils use weekly. They are taught by our swimming lead teacher, who uses her advanced experience and engaging lessons to support the children in swimming at least 25m unaided, hence achieving the swimming expectation outlined in the National Curriculum.

We also run swimming interventions in Year 4 for any children who are not able to swim 25m by the end of Year 3.

Impact

By the end of their time at TGMS, children are expected to know, apply and understand the knowledge and skills specified in our PE progression document. Our aim is for our pupils tol have a secure understanding of the benefits of leading healthy lifestyles and to leave school with the skills to self-rescue in the water, as well as swim 25m competently, using a range of strokes, for example, front crawl, back stroke and breaststroke.

At TGMS, assessment in PE is an ongoing process. Teachers will make informal judgements about pupil’s progress and attainment as they observe them throughout lessons. We use our comprehensive progression of knowledge and skills to inform teacher assessment.

At the end of each unit/block of work, teachers will assess a pupil’s level of attainment, noting which children are:

• working above the age-related expectations
• working at the age-related expectations
• working towards the age-related expectations

These judgements will be made in line with the National Curriculum objectives.