Physical Education

Curriculum Intent

At Istead Rise our PE curriculum aims to ensure that all children participate in and enjoy a wide range of physical activities and competitive sports. Our goal is for every child to become physically literate so that they not only develop their sporting ability, improve their health, fitness and wellbeing, but they also begin to develop key personal characteristics such as perseverance and cooperation. We strive to ensure that PE at our school enables children to reap the benefits of PE and the positive impacts of sport to facilitate their growth and development as human beings. The National Curriculum for physical education aims to ensure that all pupils: 

  • develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities.

  • are physically active for sustained periods of time.

  • engage in competitive sports and activities.

  • lead healthy, active lives.


Curriculum Implementation

All children across the school will participate in structured PE lessons every week, supported by our specialist PE teacher.. We follow the guidelines set by the National Curriculum to ensure we offer a range of PE activities that allow each child to feel challenged and are provided with opportunities to progress further. Lessons are accessible to all children thanks to various activities, equipment and peer groupings.

In Key Stage 1 children will learn the basic skills required in sports, such as developing hand-eye coordination, strength, agility and balance. They will spend a term concentrating on a certain area of PE. For example, they may spend a term ‘throwing and catching’ to develop and enhance their throwing and catching skills. There will be certain times where children need to work individually in order to develop their independence, whilst there will be other lessons where they need to work as a group, which will aid the development of their teamwork and communication skills. The PE lessons taught in Key Stage 1 give the children the skills they require to participate in the sports taught in Key Stage 2.

In Key Stage 2 children will focus on specific sports during their lessons. This, like the KS1 lessons, is set out in the school’s long term plan and PE curriculum map. Each term a class will concentrate on a certain sport, and each week children will be learning skills within that area to enable them to progress so that they have a greater understanding and a greater skill set required for the sport they are learning. For example, children may spend a term on basketball, where they will begin by learning the different skills required. From there, children will progress to using these skills in competitive situations, where they also have to start applying tactics to beat an opponent. Finally, by the end of the term children will be able to apply what they have learnt to a game situation.

There are also numerous additional opportunities for sporting activity within our school. These include: A variety of sports clubs,  inter-school competitions, activity days, swimming lessons, Bikeability, and sports days.