Physical Education at Hardwick

Physical Education is about "education through the physical". It aims to develop students' physical competence and knowledge of movement and safety, and their ability to use these to perform in a wide range of activities associated with the development of an active and healthy lifestyle.

It gives children the chance to be creative, cooperative and competitive and to face up to diverse challenges both as individuals and in groups. Children learn to develop the concept of fair play, honest competition, good sportsmanship and how to handle both success and defeats.

Without it they would not have the opportunity to live healthy happy fulfilling lives. Physical Education improves fitness, relieves stress, improves memory, helps you sleep better and boosts your overall mood. It is important that our children reap the benefits.

It feeds into our school’s curriculum intent by providing children with the knowledge, skills and understanding that they need to stay healthy by developing relationships, respecting differences and developing independence and responsibility. It provides them with the opportunity to improve their oracy and communication skills and to develop their team working skills, making the most of their own abilities and those of others.

Physical Education is taught across the whole school from the very youngest children in our nursery to those in Year 6. Our curriculum ensures that children learn new knowledge and skills and progress in these so that they live healthy and physically active lives.

Our curriculum ensures that our children:

Foundation Stage children

  • Show good control and co-ordination in large and small movements
  • Move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space
  • Represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through music, dance, role play and stories.

Key Stage 1 children

  • Master basic movements including running, jumping, throwing and catching, as well as developing balance, agility and co-ordination, and begin to apply these in a range of activities
  • Participate in team games, developing simple tactics for attacking and defending
  • Perform dances using simple movement patterns.

Key Stage 2 children

  • Use running, jumping, throwing and catching in isolation and in combination
  • Play competitive games, modified where appropriate [for example, badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounder’s and tennis, and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending
  • Develop flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance [for example, through athletics and gymnastics]
  • Perform dances using a range of movement patterns
  • Take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team
  • Compare their performances with previous ones and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.

Swimming and water safety

  • The school must provide swimming instruction either in key stage 1 or key stage 2.
  • In particular, pupils should be taught to:
  • Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
  • Use a range of strokes effectively [for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke]
  • Perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

In addition, children are involved in tournaments and festivals with Derby SSP and local Cluster Schools’ tournaments (arranged with our local schools to link and strengthen our communities).  We also have a number of coaches who come into school each with their own specialist skills set e.g. Drum-A-Cise and Cycle Derby to broaden and enrich the curriculum and children’s experiences.

Please see below our curriculum progression grid for Physical Education, detailing how our children progress through knowledge and skills from Nursery to Year 6:

Useful Websites

For more information about how our school uses PE and Sports Premium Funding please click here