PE

What is our overarching curriculum intent including and what do we intend students leave Bridgemary School with?

We intend that our curriculum supports our Trust ambition of ‘achieving more together’.  We do this by delivering an exciting, broad and balanced curriculum in which students will be encouraged to grow physically, cognitively, emotionally and socially whilst also fostering a passion for sport. Students will develop an intellectual curiosity for the underpinning theoretical aspects of sport and exercise and be able to apply these to a range of different sports and sporting situations, including topics such as the components of fitness, application of different tactics and strategies, developing leadership and officiating as well as building knowledge of basic anatomy and physiology.

Utilising the Head, Heart and Hands model, the curriculum is designed to develop skills that will support students in all aspects of life once they leave Bridgemary School. Skills such as communication, leadership, problem solving and critical thinking are embedded into lessons through the use of the Head, Heart and Hands model. 

The curriculum is designed around a spiral model which will allow students to build upon the core knowledge gained throughout their learning journey as they move from each topic to the next. This will equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to progress through their education and into their GCSE examinations and provide a strong foundation for those that choose to continue their studies in sport at higher education.

By the time students leave Bridgemary School we want them to be competent and confident to succeed in a variety of different sports and have an interest or passion for sport both in and out of school. Students will develop their personal skills and have an appreciation for the impact of a healthy active lifestyle can have on both mental and physical wellbeing. 

What is the structural intent of the subject curriculum, & how is it sequenced so that students know and remember more?

The curriculum across all subjects is carefully sequenced so that prior core declarative and procedural knowledge is built upon, with continual opportunities for core knowledge to be interleaved throughout both key stages so that students know more, remember more and can apply that knowledge in a range of contexts.  Facilitating knowledge adds important local, national, and global context to core knowledge, and our curriculum intends to provide a richness and diversity that enables our students to experience learning in real life contexts.

How do any school values and focuses influence or feed through the curriculum?

The school curriculum is built on 4 aims to ensure our students receive and are able to access it fully, those being:

• Reading and comprehension that aims to ensure all students leave with a reading age at least equivalent to their chronological age
• Our school ethos of Be Kind, Work Hard, Be the Best Version of Yourself
• A deepening understanding of core and facilitating knowledge that enables students to know and remember more
• A wide appreciation of the world that we live in, and the celebration of the diversity this brings

In Physical Education we support these aims by providing students with an environment in which they feel safe and comfortable to make mistakes whilst aspiring to improve their knowledge, understanding and physical ability within a sporting context. Through the use of core knowledge and key terminology, we promote reading and comprehension within the PE curriculum. The curriculum can be tailored to suit different needs whilst still providing all students access to an exciting, broad and varied curriculum. Students will be encouraged to try new things and be challenged to demonstrate resilience and independence throughout their lessons. The Physical Education curriculum encourages the teaching of British Values and PSHE. Students will cover topics such as democracy, the rule of law and mutual respect and tolerance across each year group with these topics being applied to different sports and scenarios. Within the Physical Education curriculum students are expected to develop an understanding of different roles and responsibilities within sport, show good sportsmanship, learn how to win and lose with dignity, respect the views and opinions of individual students and are taught about historical, cultural and religious differences through a range of activities. 

What is our intent to assess how well students access the curriculum and how the school intends to adapt the curriculum to close gaps in knowledge?

To ensure any gaps in prior or new knowledge are quickly identified, we check progress frequently through a range of assessment opportunities, from lesson-by-lesson declarative knowledge tests, end of topic tests that assess knowledge retention and application, to more cumulative common assessments that assess students’ ability to remember and apply knowledge in a range of contexts.  The information from these assessments are used to adapt the curriculums intending to quickly close gaps in knowledge and keep students on track to achieve at our ambitious academic flightpaths.

The curriculum we intend to deliver to students at each Key Stage:

At KS3 we deliver a curriculum that is wide ranging and diverse, providing students with access and experience in an array of different sports. Students will begin their journey in Year 7 by learning about the fundamental movement skills and how these can be applied in sport, building on knowledge that they would have gained at KS2. They will then begin to analyse why the fundamental skills are important in specific sports and sports situations and why different sports have different requirements. Following from this, students will apply the core knowledge from previous lessons to develop knowledge and understanding of both the skill and health related components of fitness. Students will learn how to accurately measure and assess the components of fitness and then apply them to specific scenarios in a range of different sports.

In Year 8 students will then study the rules and regulations for a range of sports, analysing how and why they are needed within different sports. Students will then learn the principles of play. They will then analyse the effectiveness of each of the principles and develop knowledge of how and when they can be applied within a range of sporting context. Following on from this, students will use their prior learning to assess and develop knowledge of different tactics and strategies used within sport. This knowledge will then be developed by analysing specific tactics and strategies that can be used within a variety of sports and how they can be used to outwit an opponent to achieve a desired outcome. 

In Year 9 students will learn the qualities of a good leader or official and will then be challenged to develop their own leadership and officiating skills. Students will then investigate the anatomy and physiology of the human body and begin to analyse how the human body works and functions when participating in sport. They will begin by developing knowledge of the basic anatomy of the human body; the major bones, muscles, and joints, and then use this knowledge to understand which body parts are used to create movement during specific sporting actions. Finally, students will develop the skills to be able to effectively analyse performers, both individual and team based, within a wide range of sports. Students will be able to apply all prior core knowledge to effectively evaluate performance and provide specific feedback in order to improve both the performance of their own and of others.

Our Key Stage 4 curriculum follows the same concept design that is used in KS3. We are currently still reviewing and developing our KS4 PE curriculum but the areas that students will cover in Year 10 are developing technique, applying tactics and strategies and exploring leadership. In Year 11 students will cover effective teams and remaining active

At KS4, students can select to study NCFE VCert Health and Fitness, deepening their knowledge of the human body gained at KS3 and how the different systems, both musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory, respond to exercise, whilst analysing the impact of exercise on health and fitness. This knowledge will then be applied to assessing fitness and skill levels and ultimately planning training programmes to develop specific components of fitness and achieve a specific goal.

How does the co-curriculum enhance the curriculum?

During their time at Bridgemary School students will have access to an array of co-curricular opportunities, providing cultural capital experiences. Students will have an extensive extracurricular provision of after clubs available to them where they will be able to meet with students from different years and try activities and sports that they may have not had exposure to otherwise. Students will also have opportunities to represent the school at local district sports events and competitions, providing them with a sense of pride and responsibility, as well as allowing them to challenge themselves in a competitive environment. Students will have trips and experiences available to them. This will include, but not limited to, trips such as the TKAT Games competition usually held in London, an annual trip to the O2 Arena to watch the British Basketball Playoff Final to watch elite level sport and an annual trip to Wolverhampton to compete in the UKU National Indoor frisbee competition.