Physical Education | St Peter's Catholic Primary School, Lytham

Physical Education

“ Physically educated persons are those who have learned to arrange their lives in such a way that the habitual physical activities they freely engage in make a distinctive contribution to their wider flourishing.”

James MacAllister

At St Peter’s we believe that Physical Education develops the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing competence and confidence in a range of physical activities. These include dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics and outdoor adventure activities. Physical education promotes an understanding in children of their bodies in action. It involves thinking, selecting and applying skills and promotes positive attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle; thus we enable them to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives. It also encourages healthy competition in and out of school as well as highlighting the importance of team building and forging social bonds. We strive to include all children of differing

abilities in PE and provision is made for SEN children in the school.

How our PE curriculum is delivered

We have designed a broad and balanced PE curriculum which incorporates a development of fundamental physical literacy skills from EYFS and KS1, to a deepening of these skills into KS2 through further application into a broad range of sports.

Teachers use the Lancashire PE Passport to ensure that all the requirements of the national curriculum are met across the key stages.

Fylde and Wyre provide a breadth of CPD opportunities for our staff, developing the leadership of PE in school; and with all of our teachers and teaching assistants having opportunities to observe specialist teaching of the PE curriculum. This has ensured that we are providing a high quality PE curriculum of at least two hours per week for each class, which is sustainable and develops our staff at the same time.

Our Sports premium is also used to allow for a range of extra-curricular opportunities and enrichment opportunities. As part of the Fylde and Wyre SLA, we attend inclusion festivals, as well as taking part in competitions which provide our children with the opportunity to compete against other schools and each other. Our children take part in larger competitions that include schools from across Lancashire, these include The Lancashire Dance Competition and Festival as well as the Lancashire Schools Sports.

We also have a wide variety of after school clubs for EYFS, KS1 and one for KS2; as well as a lunchtime activities that, have included archery, golf and fencing.

In addition to this, we provide a Swimming curriculum delivered across two terms in Year 3 followed by water safety which the children complete in Year 4.

We also provide further enrichment opportunities in school through additional clubs such as, Fencing, Ju-jitsu, Multi-skills.

Living an active and healthy life style is promoted throughout school in various parts of our curriculum; for example in Food Technology in our Design Technology curriculum; in our PSHE curriculum; as well as our efforts to encourage the children to have 30 active minutes per day (nature walks in our local environment, daily mile around the playground, 5 minute workouts between lessons, Active Maths).

We also provide our children with outdoor adventure opportunities by offering two residential trips: one to Castlerigg; to Lakeside in The Lake District in Year 6. These trips not only provide memorable experiences for the children, but also broaden their opportunities to experience new sports and adventurous activities.

At St Peter’s we are privileged to be able to make use of our unique locality, having regular nature walks which are linked to other parts of our curriculum e.g. Science, English, Forest School.

The Aims of PE at St Peter’s

The ability to acquire new knowledge and skills exceptionally well and develop an in-depth understanding of PE.
The willingness to practise skills in a wide range of different activities and situations, alone, in small groups and in teams and to apply these skills in chosen activities to achieve exceptionally high levels of performance.
High levels of physical fitness.
A healthy lifestyle, achieved by eating sensibly, avoiding smoking, drugs and alcohol and exercising regularly.
The ability to remain physically active for sustained periods of time and an understanding of the importance of this in promoting long-term health and well-being.
The ability to take the initiative and become excellent young leaders, organising and officiating, and evaluating what needs to be done to improve, and motivating and instilling excellent sporting attitudes in others.
Exceptional levels of originality, imagination and creativity in their techniques, tactics and choreography, knowledge of how to improve their own and others’ performance and the ability to work independently for extended periods of time without the need of guidance or support.
A keen interest in PE. A willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson, highly positive attitudes and the ability to make informed choices about engaging fully in extra-curricular sport.
The ability to swim at least 25 metres before the end of Year 6 and knowledge of how to remain safe in and around water.