Physical Education

The subject lead for PE is Ellen Goldsmith

As an inner-city school, it is imperative that we provide our children with frequent opportunities to participate in a range of physical activities, in order for them to develop both gross and finer motor skills and lead active healthy lifestyles. Our school serves a community which reflects social and economic challenges, therefore, we offer our children additional opportunities to experience high-quality PE sessions from sporting clubs and providers in and around our local area.

We believe that it is essential to provide our children with access to a range of sporting role models that reflect our diverse school community, in order to inspire our children to develop high aspirations and to promote inclusivity. Due to the school’s high number of children with special educational needs, we ensure that all children can participate at their own level of development and tailor teaching to support and develop both the emotional and physical wellbeing of our children. Our wide extra-curricular opportunities on offer allows children of all abilities to participate in sporting sessions and aims to encourage them to find an aspect of physical activity that they enjoy and want to develop into the future. Throughout all of our PE offer, we develop core values of team work, resilience and respect, which match closely to our school’s behaviour ethos. Children participating safely in physical activity is a priority for us.

We provide a broad and balanced multifaceted curriculum, which allows children to have access to a range of sports for at least 2 hours of PE a week. Sessions are taught by Class Teachers and Right Way Sport’s coaches. Teachers use ‘GetSet4PE’s scheme of work, which fully adheres to the National Curriculum, to ensure that there is clear progression of knowledge and skills being taught. PE also includes annual ‘Intensive’ swimming course for two classes in Key Stage Two. Our Right Way Sport coaches offer children the opportunity to play sport with their peers at lunchtimes, in addition to offering after school sessions in a variety of sports.

We provide additional experiences to supplement our curriculum, such as assemblies from Right Way Sports providers, workshops from visiting GB athletes during Sport’s Week in the summer term, the ‘Bikeability’ scheme and school visits to sporting grounds such as the Emirates Stadium. We encourage children of all abilities to participate in both competitive and non-competitive intra-school events run by Islington, Arsenal FC and the Maamulaha network. In Autumn 1, we took part in Cross Country against other schools and saw a huge amount of encouragement from peers which has led to interest in competing again next year. We also host intra-school events such as our annual football cup event and lunchtime matches. Children look forward to our annual sports day in Highbury Fields, where the whole school enjoys a variety of team based activities followed by a packed lunch alongside their parents and guardians.

The range of sporting opportunities that we provide, help to support all learners in finding a form of physical activity that they enjoy and want to continue. Through our close links with sporting clubs within the community, we want to inspire children and encourage them to take advantage of the opportunities that they have access to. The coaches and athletes from these clubs, who have provided our children with PE sessions, have supported in our vision to increase the diversity of participants in sport. They have helped to increase the confidence of the teaching staff, and have supported in modelling how best to meet the needs of all learners.

Our swimming offer, has moved towards teaching through an intensive course. We have seen an increase in the progress of children’s ability from their starting point, including the percentage of children achieving 25m.

Through the physical activity sessions we provide, the assemblies, workshops and trips, the curriculum links with Science, PSHCE and Cooking and our whole school focus on emotional wellbeing, we want all of our children leaving St John Evangelist leading healthy active lifestyles.