Physical Education

Intent

Across both Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 our students will develop their knowledge and love of physical education and sport. Our curriculum is designed to develop students’ skills, knowledge and understanding across a wide range of activities. We also look to develop our students in areas that we call life skills, focusing on areas that they can use in all areas of life such as direction, organisation and confidence building.

Key Stage 3

Students will cover a wide range of activities, experiencing activities from invasion sports, net and wall games, batting and fielding games, aesthetics and athletics. We will focus on developing the students’ skills allowing them to use them in game and pressure situations. Lessons are blocked into activities from 8-10 lessons allowing both staff and students to embed the skills, knowledge and understanding across the key stage. A number of the activities are repeated each year allowing preparation for the next Key Stage.  
We aim to build their knowledge and understanding of the skills, rules and tactics again developing these areas to use in game situations. Across the Key Stage we feel it is important that students also develop personal skills such as confidence, leadership and organisation, allowing them to use these skills across PE and in other areas of their life. We believe that PE is underpinned by positive values such as playing by rules, accepting weaknesses and strengths, having empathy with others and listening and acting on feedback.

Along with the lesson curriculum we encourage students to become involved in a healthy and active lifestyle by offering a wide range of extra-curricular activities across the week for all students. We are particularly proud of both Girls and Boys Active where students come along, choose the activity they would like to take part in and play for enjoyment. These sessions are well attended and facilitated by our KS4 Sports Leaders. 

The activities covered across Key Stage 3 are: 

• Athletics
• Badminton
• Basketball
• Dance
• Football
• Gymnastics
• Handball
• Health & Fitness
• Hockey
• Netball
• Rounders
• Rugby
• Tennis

Core Physical Education

In Key Stage 4 our aim is to continue to build on the skills, knowledge and understanding from their earlier experience. Across the key stage we still aim to develop the students’ skills, knowledge and understanding. However, we aim to utilise these more in them pressure and game situations. Along with developing these we aim to give the students an experience which enhances the students' physical and mental well-being, setting them up for a healthy and active lifestyle for life beyond school.

We also provide a leadership scheme giving students the opportunity to become young leaders, support events in school and a number of events in our partnership junior schools. 

Activities covered across Key Stage 4 are as KS3 plus volleyball, trampolining, softball and table tennis. We also include ‘taster sports’, introducing students to less traditional activities such as pickleball, dodgeball and round net (spikeball).

GCSE Physical Education

 

Examination Board: OCR

Intent

Course summary

In Key Stage 5 we offer A-level PE, following the OCR examination syllabus. We aim to prepare students for the final assessments of their final year. The assessments consist of two written examinations, assessment in one sport and a project called an EAPI, which analyses performance in depth. We aim to give the students a love of the subject and prepare them for life after A-levels, hopefully following a career within the sports industry. 

Introduction and Structure

A-level physical education offers students the opportunity to explore and develop a breadth of skills and enhance their understanding of physical education. The aims of the course are to:

• develop theoretical knowledge and understanding of the factors that underpin physical activity and sport and use this knowledge to improve performance
• understand how physiological and psychological states affect performance
• understand the key socio-cultural factors that influence people’s involvement in physical activity and sport
• understand the role of technology in physical activity and sport
• refine your ability to perform effectively in physical activity and sport by developing skills and techniques and selecting and using tactics, strategies and/or compositional ideas
• develop your ability to analyse and evaluate to improve performance
• understand the contribution which physical activity makes to health and fitness
• improve as an effective and independent learner and as critical and reflective thinker with a curious and enquiring mind

Areas of Study

Physiological factors affecting performance  
Psychological factors affecting performance  
Socio-Cultural issues in physical activity and sport  

Assessment

Three separate written examinations, two of 1 hour and one of 2 hours

Practical assessment: takes place towards the end of the course and students are assessed in one sport from the OCR syllabus

EAPI: students are prepared for this across the course. This involves watching some performance of a chosen sport and then feeding back required information in a verbal situation. These are recorded for assessment and moderation purposes.  

Careers and Progression

Physical education helps you to develop a variety of skills such as analysis, independent learning, effective communication, teamwork and leadership. It is an excellent pre cursor to many university courses as well as leading to opportunities in careers such as; sports journalism, sports psychologist, sports development, dietician, PE teacher, physiotherapist and sports kinesiology.

Entrance Requirements

Minimum requirement: 6 GCSEs Grades 9-4 (or equivalent), including English language and mathematics; Grade 5 physical education

YEAR 9  Key Values	Practical Performance  skill, decision making, fitness	Knowledge understanding, evaluating performance, leadership	Mind Set attitude to learning
Bronze	BUILDING Skill – can be successful in a range of different skills and can attempt to transfer into game play Decision making – can make correct decisions in skill practice and game play Fitness – is able to meet the demands of some environments	DEVELOPING Understanding – knows and uses the correct terminology for a range of skills; can identify simple rules required for a range of sports Evaluating performance – can work as part of a small group to identify strengths or weaknesses in a peer’s performance using set criteria Leadership – can work in a group to lead a warm up	PASSIVE Passive learner who is happy to sit back and listen to others Is reluctant to answer questions in lessons
Silver	CONFIDENT Skill – is confident in a range of skills and can apply these in competitive situations with a degree of aesthetics Decision making – can offer ideas to help solve problems, develop tactics and plan sessions Fitness – shows a desire to work hard and meets the demands of most environments	INCREASING Understanding – can identify and apply rules and key terminology for a range of sports Evaluating performance – can identify strengths and weaknesses of self and peer performance using criteria set Leadership – can lead specific stages of a warm up to a whole group; can manage teacher set tasks within a small group	POSITIVE Positive learner who works hard to improve Answers class questions when asked Challenges themselves to achieve
Gold	ADAPTABLE Skill – develops expert technique to improve performance; can transfer smoothly into competitive situations Decision making – can plan and apply tactics in competition to improve and influence own and other’s performance Fitness – ability to meet the demands of all environments including competitive situations	SECURE Understanding – shows sound understanding for all sports covered including rules, skills, tactics and key terminology and can use in discussions Evaluating performance – can pick out a performance’s strengths and/or weaknesses using key terminology and can offer recommendations for improvement Leadership – can lead an effective 3-phase warm up; can set up and run simple drills and practices effectively	ACTIVE Active learner who wants to learn how to improve and reach top marks. Uses sound knowledge to answer questions in class. Works independently of lessons to further develop a range of skills
Platinum	FLAIR Skill – shows a natural ability and excels in all sports efficiently, applying skills and tactics into game play Decision making – is a dictator in tactics and decisions to outwit opponents and maximise performance in individual and team situations  Fitness – always meeting the demands of competitive environments at a high intensity in lessons and extra curricular	MASTERY Understanding – has a comprehensive knowledge of rules, regulations, key terminology and fitness requirements for a range of sports Evaluating performance – can identify progressions for skills and techniques and uses this to enhance self and peer’s performance Leadership – is a confident leader who can coach and officiate different sports and regularly contributes with this during extra curricular hours	RESILIENT Active learner who constantly works hard to improve in a range of sporting situations Takes risks to overcome challenges and uses failure as a route to success

The PE department offers a rich and varied extracurricular programme. We aim to provide opportunities for all students to participate and compete in a wide variety of activities to suit all their needs. Currently we run a winter and summer programme of activities, with popular clubs like badminton and gymnastics running all year round.

We enter a wide range of competitions for students to participate in and work well with the West Norwich and Dereham School Sports Partnership to provide even more extensive opportunities for our students. Currently we enter A & B teams into local and national football competitions for all year groups, along with netball, rounders, cricket, athletics and hockey teams in different competitions. The Partnership provides opportunities for us to enter competitions such as sportshall athletics, table tennis, Playground to Podium and fishing. We have seen large number of students representing the school with even more participating in our many clubs. We encourage all students to attend whatever their ability and our open door policy to all clubs allows students to develop their skills at a pace they are comfortable with.

To coincide with our successful extracurricular programme we run leadership opportunities for our students. We have a large number of students who go through our internal leadership programme and they are able to develop their skills by helping out in clubs and teams both in school and the local community. We have run a successful football referees programme that qualifies students to officiate football games to a high standard recently and hope to offer this course again in the very near future. We actively encourage students to volunteer their help within the PE department and are delighted to have sixth formers helping out our in lessons.

Each year we run intra-form competitions with the handball tournament being very popular for each year group and run exclusively by our own students. In July we hold our annual sports day. This is a big festival style day, providing opportunities for students to earn points for their form group in the form competition as well as compete in the athletics competition for the Victor Ludorum.

We are always keen to celebrate the success of our students both in and out of the sporting curriculum and to support this we hold our prestigious sports awards evening in June. This is an opportunity for us to share and celebrate the success of our students with parents and we have a whole variety of awards promoting both effort and achievement as well as sports leadership. The crowning moment of our year is the Liz Vaughan Award, which is voted by our students for the student with the best sporting achievement/s of the year. To date our winners have come from a variety of sports including korfball, skiing, shooting, rowing, athletics and BMX.

Girls Active is a new extra-curricular club and part of the well-known organisation This Girl Can, engaging young girls in sport and physical activity. Here at THS we run a Girls Active club after school for all female students in the school. The aim of the club is to promote participation in sport and offer a diverse number of sports for all to get involved in. It is open to all ages and all abilities. We have a team of effective and enthusiastic girl activators who are our leaders; they set up and run all the activities ensuring all the girls have fun! This club has really taken off and seen an increase in the number of girls participating. We also celebrate the success of the club with girl active club trips, such as ice skating..