St Philips CofE Primary

Pupils within EYFS have a fully structured PE lesson based in the school hall at least once a week. Cross-curricular links also allow PE activities to take place during most other subjects. The EYFS outdoor area is also fully equipped with specialist equipment allowing the children to undertake daily physical exercise.

During the Autumn term Reception children also take part in a tailored healthy lifestyle programme which allows the children to build an understanding of a healthy lifestyle.

At St Philip's, the PE curriculum is a skill-based curriculum. In Key Stage 1 these fundamental skill areas are co-ordination, agility, and balance. The children will develop these key skills across different activity areas allowing them to develop transferable skills. In Key Stage 2, the focus is on physical, cognitive and manipulation. Therefore, allowing the children to develop an understanding of tactical awareness and allows them to implement these tactics into a competitive situation.

All children come to school in their PE kits, therefore each child has a full 1 hour PE lesson, twice weekly.

In addition, all Year 3 attend a weekly swimming lesson at the Pelican Centre and therefore only complete one further PE lesson within school each week. During the swimming lessons, children are taught to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres, with the focus on how to use a range of stroke effectively and perform safe self- rescue in different water based situations.

Year 5 participate in a weekend residential trip to Dobroyd Castle. Children take part in outdoor and adventurous activities that challenges them both individually and as a team. This week focuses on building communication, respect, teamwork, resilience, and problem solving. Some of the activities they complete are raft building, nightline, caving, giant swing, zip wire and the piranha pool.

Year 6 attend an annual week residential trip to Colomendy, in which they undertake a series of physical and challenging activities, including: climbing walls, assault courses, high ropes, kayaking, canoeing, trapeze, team challenges, bush craft and the leap of faith. This allows children to develop a broader range of skills and allows them to use them in different ways. The children also develop effective communication and compete against each other in different ways.

In addition to the core PE at St Philips, we also offer a well-developed enrichment PE curriculum. PE is further supplemented in Key Stage 1 and 2 by the use of professional coaches who work with staff to develop their skills and support children's development.

Pupils from EYFS to Year 6 also have the opportunity for physical activity during morning, afternoon and lunchtime breaks on one of three well-equipped school yards, stocked with resources such as football and basketball nets, climbing wall and gym equipment, trail equipment and the Play Pod. Staff and Sports Leaders (trained from year 6) are on duty to co­ ordinate a range of playground activities.

Afterschool clubs take place daily for different activities; dodgeball, archery, dance, climbing wall, bush craft, volleyball, badminton, basketball and multi skills are on offer. Lunchtime sports are also on offer at different times across the year such as; cross country, football, rugby, rounder's and cricket.

Inter- class and inter -year competitions take place on a termly basis in KS1 and KS2. The focus of these activities is to promote a healthy approach to participation and competition.

In the Autumn term, we hold an annual sports presentation evening, where we celebrate the commitment and dedication of our children from the previous academic year. We host this awards evening at Leigh Sports Village. Each child invited receives recognition of their participation in school sport with our 12 special awards being presented to the children by a professional athlete.

In the summer term, sports days are held for all children across EYFS and KS 1 and KS2, these days allow the children to participate in a number of activities from track and field events and tug of war to more traditional sports day events such as bean bag relays and egg and spoon races.