Physical Education and Sport

Intent

At Covingham Park Primary School, Physical Education is an integral part of our curriculum. We aim to develop confidence and skills in PE, promote fair play and respect whilst striving for excellence as well as promoting a healthy lifestyle. Crucially, we also strive to ensure that all of our children enjoy being active. We aim to provide children at our school with high quality PE lessons as well as greater opportunities for sporting achievement for all pupils. We encourage children to transfer the school values and ‘drivers’ to sporting and physical activity, ensuring that they aspire to be the very best they can be, working independently as well as part of a team or ‘community’. We aim for all children to be physically active for sustained periods of time and to be able to make informed decisions to lead healthy and active lives. Thus, embedding life-long values. We aim to benefit all children regardless of their sporting ability.

Implementation

At Covingham, our PE curriculum provides challenging and enjoyable learning through a range of sporting activities including invasion games, bat and ball, striking and fielding, gymnastics, dance, fitness, outdoor and adventurous activities and swimming..

Pupils participate in weekly high-quality PE lessons, covering the skills outlined on our school progression map which are taught in an enjoyable and engaging way. The pupils will receive either 1 longer PE session a week, or 2 'shorter' PE sessions. The teachers are given the freedom to choose which one they would prefer due to different timetable constraints. All children also participate in 'Fitness Fridays', which involves all pupils taking part in 15 minutes of 'high energy and intensity' exercise to improve their stamina.

The long term plan for each year group is monitored regularly by the PE co-ordinator who ensures that a variety of different sports and activities are provided across the school.

During the academic year 2023-24, all Y3, Y4 and Y5 pupils will receive a term of swimming sessions. There will be an opportunity for year six pupils to attend booster sessions at the end of the academic year if they have not met the minimum standard for swimming set out by the National Curriculum. These sessions will support the pupils to improve their confidence in the water. 

All teachers have access to the school progression map and ‘Complete PE’ (a site with planning which we buy into) to support with their planning of lessons. Teachers also receive yearly CPD from Fortius PE for a term to top-up their skills and continue to develop into outstanding PE teachers. Some of the PE funding is also used to invite external companies and coaches in to provide the children with extra/new opportunities. 

Children are encouraged to stay active at break times and can access a wide space in the playground to do this. The field is also a wide, open space available to the children when the weather is appropriate for this.

As a school, we ensure that we enter competitive sporting events each year. This is an inclusive and varied approach so that we can not only provide opportunities for a wide range of children to participate in activity, but also to challenge our gifted and talented children by competing against the best in Swindon. We yearly enter the mixed and girls’ football leagues, netball leagues as well as participating in the Quadkids athletics events, Dance Festival and Dodgeball competition alongside many others. The children at our school appreciate these opportunities and thrive in those situations.

Later on in the school year, a selection of year six children apply to become the ‘Sports Leaders’. These pupils support at our annual sports day, support the PE co-ordinator with tasks and maintaining the PE equipment and also assist with the organisation of games at breaktime with younger children. They act as sporting role models for the school and always do a fantastic job.

Year six attend PGL to have access to some outdoor and adventurous activities each year. It is always an experience they thoroughly enjoy!

Impact

At Covingham Park Primary School, we ensure that our PE curriculum is progressive and allows children to develop fundamental skills and apply them to a variety of sports and activities. All children are provided with the necessary skills and opportunities to show improvement, challenge themselves and make accelerated progress within this subject at our school. Our pupils are generally physically active and opportunities are given within PE lessons to test the pupils’ stamina levels, which increase throughout the school year. They understand the importance of regular exercise and how to lead a healthy lifestyle. We aspire for all of our pupils to enjoy participating in PE lessons and continue to do so as they leave primary school. We celebrate their successes as much as we can in regular celebration assemblies and with classroom rewards when our pupils perform well and show our school ‘drivers’ when participating. We aim for all year six pupils to leave our school with the skills to competently swim at least 25m and be able to self-rescue in water if this situation ever arises in their lives.