Physical Education at Whittington Primary School

Physical Education Curriculum at Whittington Primary School

At Whittington we ensure that children have the opportunity to participate within a balanced curriculum. Every child is timetabled two hours of quality P. E. and games per week. In addition every child has the opportunity to take part in extra curricular sports clubs.

The curriculum is broken down into a number of different activities, each designed to develop the skills and abilities of the individual child.

Dance Activities

Dance is a distinct art form, with its own history, body of knowledge, aesthetic values, cultural contexts and artistic products. Dance offers a variety of learning opportunities and enables participants to enjoy physical experiences as well as develop intellectual sensibilities. Pupils can understand themselves and others by learning in and through dance.

The artistic intention makes use of rhythm, space and relationships, expressing and communicating ideas, moods and feelings. Dance is concerned with symbolic experiences and is an essential part of a balanced physical education programme.

Creating, performing and appraising dance are the three strands in which experiences are framed. Pupils learn the skills of dancing, creating and performing dances, and through watching their peers and professional artists learn to respond, enjoy make discerning judgements.

Dance also provides particular opportunities for cross-curricular work. These are many dance forms which place emphasis on cultural, social and historical contexts and draw on a variety of stimuli and other forms to enhance the creative process.

General Activities

In games pupils select, apply and adapt skills, strategies and tactics, on their own and in teams, with the intention of outwitting the opposition in a range of different game types. Pupils learn skills and gain an understanding which will enable them to be involved in a number of team games within the physical education curriculum. We timetable the hall and field to ensure children have the opportunity to experience games lessons inside and outside.

Gymnastic Activities

In gymnastic activities such as gymnastics, pupils devise aesthetically pleasing sequences using combinations of skills and abilities which they repeat and perform with increasing control, precision and fluency. Work in gymnastics maintains and improves pupils‚ mobility and flexibility and helps them understand how to overcome the resistance of body weight. The importance of composition and attention to line and form make them vehicles for a particular kind of aesthetic understanding.

Athletic Activities

Athletic activities are based around the development of core movement skills, the ABC‚s (agility, balance, coordination, speed) in relation to running, jumping and throwing. During athletics pupils can perform and refine a range of dynamic skills with the intention of improving personal and collective bests in relation to speed, height, distance and accuracy.

Swimming Activities and Water Safety

During swimming pupils develop the confidence and ability to stay afloat and to swim unaided for sustained periods of time, selecting, adapting and refining their skills so that they can swim safely and engage in a variety of different activities in and around water. Mastery of swimming is essential to pupils‚ future participation in most water based sports. Years three and four attend swimming sessions at the Friary Grange Leisure Centre.

Outdoor and Adventurous Activities

Through participating in outdoor and adventurous activities pupils will develop, individually and in teams, the ability to analyse, plan and then respond effectively and safely to physical challenges and problems they encounter in familiar, changing and unfamiliar environments. The term outdoor education embraces:

Outdoor pursuits or adventurous activities ˆ such as caving or rock climbing in which the focus is predominantly on acquiring the skills and confidence to carry out the activities with competence and safety. These pursuits demand and develop physical competence, fitness, judgement and application of knowledge. Over the past two year children at Whittington have visited Kingswood O.E.C. and Shugborough O.E.C.