Intent

Get ready to move!

Physical Education is an extremely important part of the curriculum at Didcot Primary Academy. Every child has access to at least 2 hours of PE a week taught by our own school staff. Our aim is to inspire all of our children to live a healthy and more active lifestyle; this is achieved by providing them with stepping stones to find a love for physical activity for life.

Implement

What to expect

Here at Didcot Primary Academy, we strive to give all of our pupils high quality PE lessons which accommodates all needs and abilities. Our lessons are structured following the high quality PE schemes of work provided by the PE Hub who are partnered with the Association for Physical Education. 

Our inclusive lessons are structured in a way to give our children the maximum opportunity to progress, these are broken up into four main parts:

Part one - Warm up (which is linked to the lessons objective)

Part two - Introduction of new skill

Part three - Development of skill

Part four - Opportunity to apply the skill within a game situation 

Over the year, the pupils are given the chance to progress within a wide range of different sports, which is incorporated through tailored opportunities in both the curriculum and extra-curricular time - please see the PE long term planning at the bottom of the page. To continue to develop our PE, we have our PE specialist teacher regularly observe our staff; this is to ensure that our PE curriculum is consistent, giving our pupils the chance to experience the high quality PE that they are entitled to.

We ensure that physical activity is also accessible outside of PE lessons. For example, pupils are provided with the opportunity to use our sports equipment at break and lunchtimes, this allows the pupils to practise their skills further. We also give our KS2 pupils a fitness break in the afternoon where they complete the daily mile. Our Year 3 children also have weekly swimming lessons, which are topped up to meet the requirements of swimming 25 metres in Year 4.  We provide the children with swimming lessons at the start of KS2 as they have water based activities on the Year 4 residential trip so it is vital that they have confidence and some ability in the water in order to get the most out of the trip.

In addition to this, we hold a number of different inter-house sporting events throughout the year, this stimulates healthy competition and sportsmanship amongst our pupils. We also take our sports teams to compete in the local school events to allow them to experience competition at a higher and more competitive level. 

Impact

Providing our pupils with high quality PE is something we pride ourselves with here at Didcot Primary Academy. As a result, we have seen a positive impact upon our pupils physical and mental health, with the majority achieving age-related expectations. Furthermore, with increasing opportunities and consistent lesson structure, it has increased the percentage of pupils working above the expected level.

With tailored opportunities for all, our pupils are able to take their learning into their own hands by participating in our daily mile and attending extra-curricular sports clubs, which has positively impacted our pupil’s fitness levels. The percentage of pupils attending after-school clubs has increased substantially and strong links have been made through external providers to further their skills and passion in the sports that they love.  

Through healthy competition both internally and externally through links with the community, we have seen our pupils not just increase their skills but also learn the value of good sportsmanship - something we think is very important here at DPA. Our inter-house competitions have also allowed our pupils to form bonds with other pupils across the year groups, this has enabled our younger pupils to have role models within the school who can model safe use of equipment and help progress their skills.

We have a large number of pupils that are at county level and some have taken part in competitions in other countries. They also participate in local teams and clubs.  This includes: local football clubs - and some at academy level, hockey clubs, Radley Athletics Club, Oxfordshire County Cricket Club, Oxfordshire Swimming, Gymnastics and dance groups. 

Inspirational Visits

Here at DPA we are always looking at different ways to inspire the children. What better way to do this than to get some Olympic Athletes in to deliver assemblies to the children, teach some PE lessons and show them some tricks and an Olympic medal. 

Updated September 24