PE and Sport Provision

At Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School, we embrace the contribution of Physical Education and Sport to the health and well-being of our children. We believe that an innovative, varied PE curriculum alongside enrichments and extra-curricular opportunities have a positive influence on the concentration, attitude and academic achievement of all children.

We believe that a high quality PE curriculum should be an integral part of the whole school curriculum and one that staff, pupils and parents understand and can contribute to. Through PE and Sport our children learn to develop the important qualities of discipline, resilience, communication, team work, and ambition, leading to improved concentration, attitude, and academic.

Our PE curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils develop the fundamental skills and competence to excel in a wide range of physical activities by providing a broad and balanced curriculum with opportunities for all to be enjoyed. We believe that the subject inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in physically-demanding activities and helps them to become confident in a way which supports their health and fitness throughout their lives. Therefore, we believe that our children should be physically active every day, whether through daily Physical Activity, P.E. lessons, lunchtimes or extra-curricular activities. We also believe that children should have the opportunity to compete in sport and other activities that build character and help to embed values such as team-work, fairness and respect.

• In Key Stage 1 the children develop their fundamental skills which will give them the building blocks to become competent and confident in a range of physical activities. The children will develop these skills in three main areas: locomotion (moving in a range of ways that include: walking, running, jumping and dodging), stability (balancing) and object control (sending, receiving and controlling an object). They will use these building blocks to help them participate in team games, developing simple tactics for attacking and defending. In addition to this, they will learn and perform dances using simple movement patterns. 

• In Key Stage 2 the children will continue to apply and develop their fundamental skills linking them together to make actions and sequences of movement.  They will use this to help them play a range of competitive games* applying basic principles of attacking and defending. In addition to this they will develop their flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance and will performing dances that use a range of movement. In P.E. lessons children will communicate, collaborate and compete with each other and they will be given the opportunity to evaluate their performances, recognising how they can improve their performance and celebrating their own success.

•  In Year 3 and 4, the children will be given swimming lessons by qualified instructors. During their lessons, they will be taught to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25-metres using a range of strokes effectively such as front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke. On top of this, children who are able to swim 25m will perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations. The children who do not meet the 25m expectation will be given additional swimming lessons in Year 6.

PE and Sports Funding:

The government provides additional funding for schools to improve provision of physical education (PE) and sport in primary schools. This funding has been provided jointly by the Departments for Education, Health and Culture, Media and Sport.

The PE and Sport Allocation is funding provided to schools in addition to main school funding. This funding can only be spent on the provision of PE and sport in schools.

Funding is calculated based mainly on the number of pupils in school.

Possible uses of the funding include (in no particular order):

• hiring specialist PE teachers or qualified sports coaches to work with primary teachers during PE lessons
• supporting and engaging the least active children by running after-school sports clubs and holiday clubs
• providing training opportunities for teachers in PE and sport
• providing additional teachers to release primary school teachers for training in PE and sport purposes
• providing resources that support the teaching of PE and sport
• providing additional PE and sport equipment
• running sport competitions or increasing pupils’ participation in school games
• running sports activities with other schools
• providing places for pupils at after school sports clubs and holiday clubs

 Our Aim:

To ensure that every child has regular opportunities to participate in a wide range of physical learning and sporting activities so that they are encouraged to achieve to the best of their potential.  We believe that PE and Sport play a key role in developing qualities such as teamwork, perseverance, communication and self-control as well as encouraging pupils to develop healthy lifestyles whilst also promoting a lifelong participation in regular physical activity. We believe that this will result in improved concentration, attitude and achievement in all aspects of pupils’ personal development.

How we will use our funding:

In addition to the many practices already established in Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School, the range of in-school PE and sports events and activities and after school clubs, tournaments, competitions, etc. organised by the schools PE Coordinator and staff:

• We use PE specialists to support the teaching of PE lessons in school whilst also supporting staff with additional training
• Employing specialist PE teacher/qualified coaches to deliver this through 3 separate Service Level Agreements including additional lunch time support and activities and an after school sports clubs, (12-month contract)
• Contribution towards outdoor play areas (installation, maintenance and upkeep)
• Provision of spare kits for swimming and PE to ensure that all pupils can access the lessons
• Purchase of additional playground resources/equipment to enhance pupil participation and activity (managed by Midday Supervisor)

• School Sports Partnership annual fee
• To arrange/coordinate local competitions and increase pupil participation in school games competitions

• Continue to encourage and increase participation in inter and intra school competitions and tournaments through local and professional partnerships
• Staff professional development – in-house and external

• Support the development of active outdoor learning opportunities (including lunch times) 

 The table below shows how the funding has been spent during the current academic year 2022/23