Curriculum Intent

At St Thomas’s Centre, we aim to engage, motivate and inspire children to develop a love of physical exercise and games. We recognise the benefits of a strong Physical Education curriculum and extra-curricular activity on raising children's aspirations and self-esteem. We want to develop children's experiences and enable them to achieve personal successes. We have created a developmentally appropriate curriculum focusing on learning through PE and sport. This will enable children to be physically literate leading to the development of a healthy, active lifestyle.

PE teaching at St Thomas's aims to follow the requirements of the National Curriculum for Physical Education; providing opportunities for all pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. Opportunities to compete in a range of sports and other activities build character, and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.

At St Thomas’s Centre, we use PE Passport as our scheme of work. PE Passport allows for all children to access quality PE lessons with a clear focus on progression of skill. Skills are taught sequentially and recapped over a key stage to develop mastery of the skills.

We take the ability to swim unaided very seriously and want as many of our children to leave us being able to swim 25m; it is a lifesaving skill. This is why in September 2023 we decided to start weekly swimming lessons for all Primary pupils.

Key Stage 1 overview

Pupils should 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 should be taught to:

• Master basic movements including running, jumping, throwing and catching, as well as developing balance, agility and co-ordination, 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.

Key Stage 2 overview

Pupils should 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 should be 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.