At Lapage we believe that physical education develops children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, so that they can perform with increasing competence and confidence in a range of physical activities. These include dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics and outdoor adventure activities. Physical education promotes an understanding in children of their bodies in action. It involves thinking, selecting and applying skills, and it promotes positive attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle. Thus we enable the children to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives.
We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in PE lessons and other areas of the curriculum to meet the individual needs of all children at Lapage with the aim of ensuring that all children leave us with the skills, understanding and knowledge to lead a successful healthy life.
The Aims of Physical Education at Lapage are:
All children in year 1 to year 6 are timetabled to participate in 1 lesson of PE a week. This lesson is taught by our experienced PE specialist Mr Dennison.
Children in reception also receive one lesson per week, taught by Mr Dennison and additional opportunities for gross and fine motor development are facilitated throughout the reception curriculum.
At Lapage PE lesson content follows the Department for Education’s national curriculum guidance. A copy of the PE long term curriculum map is displayed on the school’s website which shows an overview of the schools PE curriculum at Lapage. We aim to achieve a balance between the range of sports/activities taught and the depth they are studied to ensure children are able to develop and improve in the topics they study.
In Reception, lessons focus on fundamental movement skills and these are taught through dance and games activities.
In Key Stage 1, we teach dance, games, and gymnastics, with a focus throughout on the fundamental movement skills of agility, balance and co-ordination (ABC).
In Key Stage 2, we teach dance, games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics and outdoor and adventurous activities.
At Lapage Primary School we share the views and aspirations of Swim England that swimming is a sport that anyone and everyone can enjoy throughout their lives. We value the importance of swimming not only as a sport and valuable form of exercise but also for its importance as a life-saving skill. We endeavour to ensure that all children have the best opportunity to develop their confidence and capabilities in and around water as we believe that this is vital to children’s safety, health and happiness.
Children at Lapage attend swimming lessons, during year 5, at Eccleshill Swimming Pool. They attend weekly 45-minute lessons throughout the school year in separate sessions for boys and girls. Lessons are taught by Bradford Aquatics instructors and supported by teaching staff from school.
In line with our ambitions as a school to ensure children are physically active everyday we promote a school uniform that includes the items listed below to enable children to feel comfortable and able to participate in the school day as fully as they can.
Red sweatshirt
White polo T shirt
Black tracksuit bottoms or Black leggings
Black Trainers
At Lapage we passionately believe that all children should be provided with equal opportunities to participate in a curriculum in which there are no barriers to access based on race, sex, culture or ability. PE lessons should aim to provide quality experiences which challenge and engage all children.
At our school we teach PE to all children, whatever their ability. PE forms part of the school’s teaching and learning policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Through our PE teaching we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make progress. We do this by setting suitable learning challenges and responding to each child’s different needs. Intervention through SEN support will lead to the creation of an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for children with special educational needs. The IEP may include, as appropriate, specific targets relating to PE, which will be worked on through individual intervention time as well as differentiation in whole class PE lessons.
The school’s PE specialist is responsible for the assessment of children’s attainment in PE. They record the progress made by children and ensure that this information informs the planning and activities in future learning. These records also enable the teacher to make an annual assessment of progress for each child, as part of the child’s annual report to parents.
There is a wide range of resources to support the teaching of PE across the school, this is regularly reviewed and is updated when necessary. Equipment is stored in the PE storerooms where items and equipment are clearly labelled to enable all staff to locate and return equipment tidily and efficiently. Further equipment is stored in the external garage and outdoor learning shed. Children are not permitted to access any of PE storage areas unless they are under close adult supervision.
The PE hall contains a range of large apparatus that is positioned carefully to ensure they do not hinder learning during lessons when they are not in use. This equipment is subject to an annual safety inspection and is also checked by teachers prior to use during lessons.
We are fortunate to have ample outdoor facilities for PE activities and sporting celebrations. These facilities are checked and monitored as part of the facility managers regular checks but must also be checked by any teachers prior to lessons or other activities taking place. Any faults or hazards must be reported to the facility manager via the report log based in the school office.
We provide a range of extra-curricular PE related activities including netball, football, tag rugby, multi-skills, Ju jitsu and dance. These are either led by members of school staff or delivered by an outside agency. Further details of the procedures relating to afterschool clubs can be obtained in the extracurricular clubs policy.
The school also plays and hosts regular sports fixtures against other local schools and additionally participates in the Bradford School Games series of sports fixtures arranged by Carlton Bolling College. As a school we endeavour to involve as many children as possible in inter and intra school sport. This competitive element is key to our teaching and their involvement allows children to put into practice the skills that they have developed in their lessons and extra-curricular sessions. These opportunities aim to foster a sense of team spirit and co-operation amongst our children as well as giving children the experience of socialising with children from the wider community.
We actively seek to engage with many local sports groups and community initiatives with the aim of directing our pupils on a course of life long involvement in sport and physical activity.
As a school we are pro-actively dedicated to reducing the number of children in school that are categorised as overweight or obese. We are committed to increasing the physical activity of all our pupils not only to improve their health but also because we recognise that physical activity improves children’s cognitive ability and academic achievement (healthy body, healthy mind).
With this in mind our school continues to implement the following: