Physical Education
“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand… It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination…the rules of the game are the same for everyone, and behaviour is guided by fair play and good sportsmanship”
Nelson Mandela, 2000
At Eden School, the intent of Physical Education is to help develop the positive physical and mental health of our pupils, embedding life skills that will have a positive impact on their future.
Eden School recognises the vital contribution of physical education to a child’s physical, cognitive, social and emotional development as well as the role it can play in a child’s spiritual, moral and cultural development. Eden pupils are often from a socio-economically deprived area and have often missed opportunities to develop their skills and often enter the school with poor educational experiences and low confidence and self-esteem.
We aim to create a safe and supportive environment which inspires all children to take part in PE. We aim to provide a broad and balanced P.E. curriculum to aid children’s increasing self-confidence in their ability to manage themselves and their bodies within a variety of movement situations. By building and supporting these key areas we hope pupils will develop a positive relationship with PE which will last for life.
We follow the National Physical Education Curriculum at KS2, KS3 and Deliver Sport Studies (ASDAN) at KS4.
The PE curriculum at Eden School has been designed to inspire, challenge and motivate all pupils to ‘learn to move’ and ‘move to learn’. This philosophy runs alongside our commitment to ensuring that through the curriculum, pupils continually develop their knowledge up the three identified ‘Pillars of Progression’.
Motor competence
Motor competence (being able to move in an increasingly expert way) is often misunderstood as a ‘given’ but this pillar entails complex knowledge that often needs to be broken down and taught to pupils in order to move them from novice to expert.
Rules, strategies & tactics
There is a rich body of knowledge that underpins all sports and allows us to develop our understanding and have increasingly complex conversations about sports and activities.
Healthy Participation
To be a successful participant in sport you also need to know about the sport specific dimensions of healthy participation. For example, a warm up to complete a dance activity may be very different to a rugby warm up as the components of fitness are different across sports. This part of our curriculum looks to give pupils the knowledge to be healthy and active in their lives, but also develop their understanding of how to be a healthy participant within specific sports.
PE is for everyone
Competition and performance are often quite complex tasks and are therefore introduced at the right time in a pupil’s development. Sometimes, a competitor can play a whole game without really getting involved either through chance or choice, It is therefore important that all pupils have opportunities to excel across a range of different activities that inform how pupils are progressing across all three pillars. We understand that considerable learning can often occur without considerable performance gains, but still make exceptional progress in terms of their knowledge of rules, strategies and tactics for example. At Eden we want to ensure PE provides a gateway into the world of sport and physical activity.
Extra-Curricular PE
We try to participate in as many sporting opportunities as we can outside of school time and join in competitions with others when we can. We offer residential experiences to our children and also opportunities to learn outside the classroom. We offer swimming lessons to all our Primary aged children but also extend this offer to our older children in school who have not experienced the opportunity to develop their own swimming and water safety skills. All children are considered for these opportunities.
Curriculum Maps
