Physical Education
Physical Education (PE) is very high on the agenda for all our pupils at Fircroft Primary.
From EYFS to Year 6 and beyond, we believe that we should inspire our children to lead a physically active life and become healthy, active learners. We aim to provide each pupil with a positive Physical Education learning experience within an environment where each individual feels successful.
Intent: What do we want our children to learn
Through the teaching of PE, we want children to:
- become confident participators in a range of physical activity
- develop good fundamental individual skills
- develop teamwork skills
- experience competition, so that they learn how to win and lose with grace
- enjoy PE so that it becomes the starting block for a lifelong participation in physical activity in order to stay healthy
Implementation: What does PE look like at Fircroft?
PE at Fircroft is taught by class teachers and by a specialist company, AFC Wimbledon, who are very much onboard with our ethos.
Each class has two PE sessions a week; one taught by a specialist coach, one taught by the class teacher. A significant part of PE in Early Years, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 is spent on developing the fundamental skills of movement (running, balancing, catching, jumping, hopping, skipping, throwing). As children progress through the school, increasingly they apply these fundamentals to a half termly sports focus.
Fundamentals and specific sports are returned to with regularity to allow children to consolidate their skills. Skills are then built on in terms of difficulty and increased competitiveness as they progress through the school.
Swimming is also part of our PE curriculum and we offer this to Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 at Ernest Bevin’s swimming pool, taught by highly skilled swimming teachers.
This year, we are excited to be developing links with the Dance department at Burntwood Secondary School to enhance our spring term Dance focus.
Curriculum map
Enriching the PE curriculum
We celebrate a year of sports with our Annual sports day which is held at Tooting Athletic Track.
In addition to our PE lessons, children have lots of other opportunities to get moving. Teachers include the Fitcroft Five into their week to help children maintain the right frame of mind to learn. At break times and lunchtimes, the children are provided with playground equipment to use, such as skipping ropes and balls, which helps to encourage them to run around, join organised games and burn some of their energy! Both playgrounds include climbing equipment and basketball hoops. Our Junior playground also has a football pitch with goals and a table-tennis table.
We have a wide range of before and after school sports clubs run by school staff, specialist coaches and organisations which are all incredibly popular.
We also engage in school wide initiatives during the year themed around physical activity, for example the Bear-pee challenge for Children in Need day.
We provide lots of opportunities for children to represent the school in sports. We compete in the football ‘Golden League’ and enter as many of Wandsworth’s inter-school competitions over the year as we can!
Impact: How do we support children to develop their skills and check that they have retained key learning points?
Each sequence of lessons includes:
- regular recap of previously taught skills / knowledge specific to the sport
- regular recap of previously taught safety rules, specific to the sport
Teachers and coaches provide support and stretch in the following ways:
- suggesting specific adjustments that children can make to activities to help or challenge themselves, so that all can make progress in their skills development. (for example, increasing or decreasing the distance between each other when practicing passing)
- Strategically grouping / pairing children (for example, pairing a child who struggles to catch with a competent passer OR matching two very able children together so that they challenge each other)
- Selecting and signposting children for additional sports experiences
