Intent

At Milton Mount we are ATHLETES! We believe that when PE is experienced in a safe and supportive environment, children are able to attain optimum development both physically and emotionally. Helping to promote all of our pupils to lead healthy active lifestyles and maintain good health throughout the entirety of their lives.  We also aim to enable all of our pupils to be able to leave year six with the ability to competently swim at least 25m, as stated in the national curriculum, as swimming and being able to safely rescue themselves within water is a key life skill that will be potentially lifesaving all throughout life.

Our curriculum starts in the Early Years Foundation Stage focussing on gross motor skills to meet the Physical Early Learning Goals and within PE sessions we work to meet the basic fundamental skills required to be successful both physically and mentally. Children learn about not only basic physical skills and methods of movement; but also, key concepts such as how to handle equipment safely, how to move around safely, how to control and use individual parts of their body and how to work well with other children as part of a team. The skills and concepts that are introduced in the EYFS are built upon all the way up to year 6, leaving children with a strong understanding of skills across a wide range of physical activities.

Do more

Our curriculum has been carefully curated and designed with the intention that by the end of year 6, children will have experienced a wide range of sports, both individually and as part of a team. Our aim is to ensure that each child has the support and scaffolding to join in with every sport or sport-based opportunity that we offer. Each lesson offers ways to provide children that require additional support the scaffold that they need to be successful, as well as challenges to stretch children that may have had more prior exposure or experience within the sport.

Know more

Beginning our curriculum basing the majority of children’s learning around transferable skills, Our children develop a strong understanding of a wide variety of skills which are useful across multiple different sports. As they progress into Key Stage 2, the skills that they have been learning throughout Key Stage 1 are transferred further to support them in learning and experiencing a variety of different sports. By spending time focussing on transferable skills our children are able to know why the ‘basics’ in sport are crucial for success across many different activities.

Remember more

Each sport taught at our school follows a cohesive pathway all the way through from Early Years to year 6. Sports are revisited each year to help children solidify their previous learning, address any gaps that may have occurred and build upon a strong understanding of the sport specific skills and rules that had been forming from previous years. Our curriculum also teaches into skills that can be transferable across a range of sports. For example, the sending and receiving skills that are introduced in KS1 and developed throughout their time at school can be applied to a variety of sports such as football.

Experience more

Through offering a vast range of sports, as well as the opportunity for children to engage in competitions and tournaments outside of school, all of our pupils have the chance to experience a variety of both competitive and non-competitive sports. We feel that by being able to offer such variety of sports, as a school we can create a culture which aims to inspire an active generation that genuinely enjoy PE. Through experiencing multiple different sports children are more likely to find one that they truly enjoy taking part in, as for many children physical activity can be a daunting and unenjoyable task. When children find a sport or activity that they find enjoyment in, they are more supported in their physical, emotional, spiritual, social and moral development, which is essential for not just PE but all of their educational journey.    

Consider more  

By doing, knowing, remembering and experiencing more, children at Milton Mount will have gathered a wide range of physical, emotional and social skills that can be transferred across a variety of sports and other subjects. This promotes a love for sport as a whole and helps to promote children to lead a healthy active lifestyle.

Implementation

• Throughout the entirety of the children’s time at school and across all the different sports that are taught within our curriculum, key skills that are an essential part of any sport are explicitly taught. This enables children to develop a concrete understanding how to take part in a variety of different activities. Children are also introduced and familiarised with other crucial life skills as part of our PE curriculum, such as team work and emotional regulation, as these are important not just as part of a sport but also throughout many other parts of life.

  In EYFS, PE is taught not only in PE lessons, but also through free play and activities in the shared areas. Their main focus revolves around meeting the Physical Early Learning goals, specifically gross motor skills. They have fine motor activities in each classroom to support development and to help develop strength through activities such as squashing and kneading dough. They have provision in place to allow children to explore dance and yoga. After Christmas, classes begin to follow the same curriculum as the rest of the school to begin to introduce them to the skills they will be building upon throughout the rest of school.

  In Key Stage 1 The majority of the PE lessons focus around teaching focusses around teaching skills in small steps which can be later implemented into a variety of sports. The skills focussed on revolve around sending and receiving, invasion games, ball skills, team building, striking and fielding, target games and net and wall skills. We also focus on health-related exercise to continue to promote the importance of a healthy active lifestyle. The children in Key Stage 1 also take part in lessons in dance, gymnastics, hockey and athletics as these not only incorporate the skills that are taught into during skill lessons, but also sport specific skills that are built upon throughout the entirety of their time at our school.

  In Key Stage 2 the skills that have been introduced and taught into in Key Stage 1 are built upon further and implemented into a variety of sports. The children are taught how to use the skills they have learn earlier in the school in sport specific situations across both team sports and individual sports. They continue to focus on health-related exercise as well as dance, gymnastics, hockey and athletics, but more sports are built into their curriculum to promote a love for exercise across many different activities. The sports introduced at Key Stage 2 to build upon their prior skills are netball, basketball, tag rugby, handball, rounders, football and tennis.

  All sports and activities are taught through the use of small steps, from EYFS all the way up to Year 6. This helps teachers to monitor the progress of all members of their class and address any issues as they may arise. Each sport is carefully planned out with a distinct pathway that is evident from EYFS all the way through to the end of Key Stage 2 to ensure that every sport has continuation in its teaching, helping children to revisit and solidify their learning as they move through each year group.

  Structure of a lesson.

• At the beginning of every lesson, children start with a warm up activity. This helps to get their body’s physically ready for exercise as well as prepare them mentally for the lesson. It is a gentle and fun way of beginning the learning, which is usefully done in a game style format focussing on one of the skills they may require for the lesson or topic. Children are then introduced to the learning of the lesson and then moved straight on to skill development. We believe that children should not be idle during a PE lesson and as much of the time as possible should be spent being active in some way.
• The next part of a lesson focuses on development of skills. This is the longest part of the lesson and uses small steps to help each child work towards being successful. It begins with a recap of what they may have learnt in the previous lessons to help remind children of the base understanding that they will be building on. It then moves on to individual, pair or group-based activities revolving around the specific skill that the lesson is focussing on and teaches into this skill in a variety of different way. For example, as part of our Ball Skills topic in year two, the first activity taught into during the skill development section of the lesson is rolling the ball to your partner in different way, which was covered in the lesson prior. It then moves on to a game whereby partners must roll the ball through each other’s goal with one rolling and one stopping the ball in the most appropriate way. After this has been taught into, the skill is progressed into a group activity designed to teach children how to track and receive a moving ball from different directions and angles.
• Each step taught into as part of the skill development section of the lesson has the opportunity for differentiation, to help scaffold those who may find it tricky as well as stretch those who may find it simple. This is done to ensure that every child is getting the most from their learning and moving at a pace which is appropriate to the level they are working at.
• The final part of any PE lesson is a short cool down or plenary activity, designed to draw the learning to a conclusion. This is often done through a short cool down game, a quick discussion into what they have learn and achieved or a reflection task where they think about what they have been successful in as well as what their partner or group has been successful in. This helps to raise confidence and moral within the class and encourages a healthy mental attitude towards exercise as a whole.

Impact

Our aim is that through high quality teaching of our PE curriculum, children will develop the following skills that we believe are crucial for future success:

• EYFS- Physical development in Gross Motor Skills
• Negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others.
• Demonstrate strength, balance and coordination when playing.
• Move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing.

• KS1
• Negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others.
• Demonstrate strength, balance and coordination when playing.
• Move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing.

• KS2
• 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.
• Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres.
• Use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke]
• Perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.