PE & Sport at The Leys

National Curriculum Aims
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The national curriculum for physical education aims to ensure that all pupils:‍

• Develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities.
• Are physical active for sustained periods of time.
• Engage in competitive sports and activities
• Lead healthy, active lives.

Here at The Leys we use the power of sport to further promote and develop the children's personal and social growth.

We ensure that physical, personal and social progress is at the heart of our high quality provision.  

PE is delivered by a number of different teachers across the school, however Mr Newlands and myself (specialists) provided the majority of the pupils' provision throughout the week.  The teaching topics are arranged so that they are taught by teachers with past and present experience.  All our swimming provision is provided by Stevenage Swimming Pool and their qualified and experienced instructors.

We have used PE as a tool to embed the importance of positive healthy well-being and the benefits of leading this lifestyle.   

We offer all our pupils a broad diverse PE curriculum that offers all pupils the opportunity to shine and flourish.  Through our whole school PE curriculum we have ensured that all subject content for both KS1 and KS2 has been met and provides greater opportunities to enrich all our pupils' education and beyond. 

All pupils access 2 hours of high quality provision each week.  This is supported by PE Passport, a fantastic scheme that provides great support for non-specialist teachers.

We have a whole school approach to our active umbrella initiative.  This active umbrella approach includes our daily mile, active maths/English, outdoor adventurous activities (Year 6 residential, orienteering on site), active PE bags to support movement breaks, extra curricular clubs and competitions through Stevenage Sporting Futures and local providers.

In Year 6 we have Sports Ambassadors and House Captains, who act as role models, develop leadership skills and support younger children at lunchtime and on whole school sports events to develop positive values in sport.

Our Year 6 pupils each year visit Manor Adventure for a week of incredible outdoor activities and team building exercises.  This week provides our pupils with lifelong memories.  

Our year 4 pupils visit Wymondley Wood each year and do an overnight stay.  This trip is to help build teamwork and develop outdoor adventurous skills along with personal and social development.  

Both our Manor Adventure and Wymondley Wood trips have an amazing impact and this is reflected in the pupils' PE work and also in other learning activities and environments.

Early Years Foundation Stage

Our EYFS take part in PE every week with Mr Byford and Mr Newlands.  The teaching and learning for our early years pupils is centred around their EYFS curriculum and the PE lessons are designed to develop all areas of the children's growth.  The EYFS have their own specific outdoor learning area which they use daily throughout the entire year.  This outdoor space allows all pupils to further develop their physical skills along with personal and social development. 

Subject Content
Key Stage 1

Pupils develop fundamental movement skills, become increasingly competent and confident and access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others. They should be able to engage in competitive (both against self and against others) and co-operative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations.

Pupils are taught to:

• Master basic movements including running, jumping, throwing and catching, as well as developing balance, agility and coordination, and begin to apply these in a range of activities.
• Participate in team games, developing simple tactics for attacking and defending.
• Perform dances using simple movement patterns.
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Subject Content
Key Stage 2

Pupils will continue to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement. They should enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other. They should develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.

Pupils are taught to:

• Use running, jumping, throwing and catching in isolation and in combination.
• Play competitive games, modified where appropriate [for example, badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders and tennis], and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending.
• Develop flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance [for example, through athletics and gymnastics].
• Perform dances using a range of movement patterns.
• Take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team.
• Compare their performances with previous ones and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.
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Swimming and Water Safety

We provide swimming instruction in key stage 2 (year 4 all year and year 6 top up swimming summer term 2). 

In particular, pupils are taught to:  swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres and to use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke].  Pupils perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

The children are awarded different certificates at the end of their swimming block to celebrate their achievements.  We also provide our year 6 pupils with an additional online swimming safety program provided by Swim England.  We are a registered Swim England School. 

The expectation is that 75% of our year 6 cohort should be able to swim 25 metres safely and effectively by the end of KS2.  

Passion and power of sport is the drive behind our PE provision. 

Welcome Back

It's great to be back and showing such enthusiasm and motivation for our learning.  We are looking at a number of different topics this term and we have already seen positive progress throughout the school, this is credit to our fantastic pupils.

Our after school sports clubs are up and running and there are wonderful participation levels across all sports clubs.  Mr Newlands has taken a group of year 6 pupils to Sports Ambassador training and these pupils have started their leadership journeys already.  Our Sports Ambassadors will be our active role models during play times and lunch times.  They will also be supporting our younger pupils each lunch time with organised and structured games. 

Our new year 6 house captains have been elected and they have already collected a huge amount of house points, well done and thank you.    We have a range of different sporting events coming up between now and Christmas.  These events will be spread across different year groups and different sports. 
Please keep up the fantastic start!

Many Thanks
Mr Byford & Mr Newlands