About Physical Education


Physical Education Curriculum Intent: Understanding Physical Education’s Curriculum DREAM 

Purpose: This document sets out how Physical Education approaches Curriculum Intent at Eaton Bank Academy. 

Design  How have you designed your curriculum to be broad, balanced and ambitious? 
The Physical Education Curriculum is designed to expose pupils to a broad range of sports across Key Stage 3, whilst also providing subject specific and character-based themes throughout the year, developed through the medium of sport. This encompasses both our curricular and extra-curricular programme, which offer an ambitious array of opportunities to our students. 

 

We have designed a Spiral Curriculum that will re-visit learning in increasing complexity. Our units of work revisit previous learning and adds new knowledge that is age and stage appropriate. For example, again in our units where we learn about warm-ups. In Year 7 we will learn the phases of the warm-up, Year 8 we will learn the phases of a cool down and the purpose of warm-up. Then in Year 9, pupils will learn the purpose of a cool down and how it benefits the body.   

 

All Physical Education lessons will have a Head, Heart, and Hands lesson objective.  An example of this is an Athletics lesson for 1500m, the three lesson aims may be;  

  • Head (Theory/Understanding) – The component of fitness needed in the 1500m.  
  • Heart – Show resilience and not give up, try your best.  
  • Hands – Demonstrate pacing during the 1500m.  
Rationale  What is the rationale behind your curriculum design and ordering of content over time? 
Our curriculum is designed to develop pupils holistically. To encourage and prepare them towards a life-long participation in sport, whether that be as a performer, coach, official or any other potential career in the ever-growing sports industry. All of our schemes of learning are built around developing not just our pupils’ practical skills but also their social and cognitive skills.  

 

We have chosen to focus on certain skills during each unit of work that we feel fit the sport and can be taught alongside the practical skills. For example, during our football and netball units in KS3 we are progressively teaching pupils about warm-ups and cool-downs and the importance of them whilst giving every pupil the opportunity to develop their leadership skills.  

 

We offer an extra-curricular programme that supports this rationale and sets out to serve 3 main purposes; Firstly, it is to extend learning from the classroom and develop skills and talents. Our extra-curricular programme also provides an opportunity for pupils to play competitive sport against other schools. Finally, it serves the purpose of developing physical literacy, giving pupils extra exposure to sport and physical activity allowing them to grow in confidence and knowledge of sport, pushing them towards life-long participation in sport.  

 

Equality  How is your curriculum accessible and purposeful for all students, including SEND, Disadvantaged and Higher Ability Learners? 
The Physical Education Curriculum allows all pupils to access learning whilst also providing opportunities for pupils to be successful and continuously challenged. The curriculum has been designed to ensure that all pupils have access to the same curriculum as one another.  

 

Although pupils will not all do the same activity at the same time due to resources and teaching spaces, they will all experience being taught all sporting groups of the national curriculum each year.  All pupils have the opportunity to gain verbal feedback, work as part of a team, work independently and analyse performances of themselves and others.  

 

We also offer an extra-curricular programme that is broad, varied and open to all pupils. Every single pupil in the school has the opportunity and is welcomed to engage in more sport and physical activity through the clubs and opportunities that we offer.  

Aims, Vision & Values  What is the aim of your curriculum and how does this support the aims and values of the school? 
At Eaton Bank Academy, we want Physical Education to be a Positive Experience for all, where pupils can flourish and achieve their potential. We aim to provide a curriculum and an extra-curricular programme that is inclusive of all and that promotes a love of learning and a love of being physically active.  

 

We aim to develop every pupil’s physical literacy, giving our pupils the ability, the understanding, and the confidence to take part in physical activity in school and throughout their lives once they leave Eaton Bank Academy. 

Subsequently, by inspiring a passion and love of the subject, we will encourage a high uptake in the subject at KS4 and KS5.  

 

We use sport and physical activity as a vehicle to teach and nurture key life skills and develop cultural capital in the young people of Eaton Bank. Our curriculum prepares pupils for life by providing opportunities to develop their communication, resilience, confidence, leadership, ambition, empathy. As well as developing pupils’ practical ability, we aim to develop pupils’ social and cognitive skills, whilst promoting the school values of respect, kindness, ambition, optimism, and honesty throughout our curriculum.  

Misconceptions  How do you address misconceptions in your subject to support students’ learning? 
A common misconception in Physical Education is that lessons wholly focus on developing practical skills. That teachers only focus on developing practical skills to give pupils the ability to play competitive sport for school or at a certain level outside of school. 

 

Our Physical Education curriculum is about more than that, going back to our aims, we want to improve the physical literacy of our pupils. This means that we aim to develop pupils holistically and help our pupils to grow into well-rounded people capable of leadership, effective communication that are resilient, empathetic, and first and foremost a good person. We place as much emphasis on pupils’ ability to be resilient and good communicators (for example) as we do on their ability to master the lay-up in basketball for example. 

 

This is achieved through our Head, Heart, Hands model approach to our curriculum and through our weekly rewards within the department.  

 

Physical Education Curriculum Map


Meet the Teachers


Mr McDonald

Mrs Andrews

Mr Dytiche

Miss L Williams