Physical Education at the meon valley federation

At the MVF we recognise that most young children love to move! Our PE curriculum offers a broad range of activities to promote a healthy lifestyle as well as developing the key personal skills of resilience, self-esteem, collaboration, self-confidence and independence. We recognise the strong link between mental health and movement, which is reflected in opportunities for physical activity throughout our schools.

Our PE Vision:  

Our PE provision aims to develop children’s confidence, motivation and ability to being physically active, while teaching the positive impact that physical activity can have on mental health and emotional well-being.

Our curriculum drivers will be met in the following ways:

Diversity – Pupils will be exposed to dance, music and customs from around the world. They will learn the elements of movement and a range of sports.

Empathy – Pupils will learn to recognise that we are all good at different things and to take into account the feelings of others around winning, losing and being a team player in a game.

Citizenship – Pupils will have a strong awareness and tolerance of other cultures; they will manage their own risks and understand the importance of rules.

Resilience – Pupils will be encouraged to have a go at physical movements and activities that challenge them; they will set their own level of challenge and set high expectations of themselves. Our pupils will leave Year 2 with the gross motor skills needed to access a range of physical activity. They will understand the importance of being a team player as well as appreciate the value of competitive sports. Children will articulate their feelings around their mental health and the impact of exercise and physical activity on their well-being.

EYFS

• We want our children to lead happy, active and healthy lives, enjoying physical play both indoors and outdoors.
• Physical development is a vital part of growing up as children learn to master control of their bodies. Physical development includes sitting, crawling, standing walking, balancing and skipping. As children grow and develop, these changes are easily noticed and are viewed as ‘markers’ along life’s journey. These markers are referred to as developmental milestones. This is why physical development in early childhood is crucial 

Physical Development is one of the 7 areas of learning in the Early Years Statutory Framework and is an essential part of the curriculum.

A child’s physical or motor development falls into two categories:

Gross motor: Gross motor skills are referred to as the movement and co-ordination of the arms, legs and other large body parts. Generally, these skills call for whole-body movement. For instance, they include actions such as standing, running, crawling and swimming. Gross motor skills help us with our everyday functions. That’s why it is important for children to develop these skills timely. Usually, these skills develop in a head-to-toe order. The children typically learn head control, trunk stability first, and then how to stand up and walk. It is also important to note that children exposed to outdoor playtime activities develop better gross motor skills.

Examples of these movements that the children will take part in during their physical development in our school are:

• Bikes and trikes
• Jumping
• Balancing
• Running
• Large play equipment
• Crawling through tunnels
• Wheeled vehicles including scooters
• Playground ball games 

Fine motor: Simply defined, fine motor skill (dexterity) is the co-ordination of small muscles and therefore smaller movements. It also includes movements that occur in the wrists, hands, fingers, feet and toes. For example, writing, cutting, painting, colouring and using cutlery to eat are all fine motor skills. It is essential that children acquire fine motor skills at an early stage because they will help them interact with their environment.

Examples of these movements that children will have repeated opportunities to refine and develop are:

• Lacing and threading
• Finger gym activities and games
• Tweezer and tong skills
• Painting, printing, chalking
• Peg boards
• Cutting and tearing
• Small construction eg bricks, Lego 

We use the Kinetic Letters handwriting scheme, a brief summary of key elements is below:

Year R

Year 1

Year 2

Our curriculum offers a broad range of physical activities for our children including:

Scooter training, multi-skills such as archery, use of outdoor play equipment and play trail, yoga, outdoor physical growing time using bikes and trikes, parachute games and country dancing, martial arts.

During our sports week we expose the children to a range of activities and challenges which encourage the children to take risks within a safe space and to develop their resilience.

Physical activity doesn’t have to be all about PE, staff boost activity levels through many creative activities such as

Funky Fingers fine motor activities, Nurture group physical activities such as The Clean Up Crew, Clever bodies and gardening, forest days and welly walks. We also regularly organise charity events such as sponsored walks.

We encourage and celebrate children’s out of school sporting achievements during our weekly celebration assemblies.

How do we plan PE?

Teaching support Aspire Coaching

Pupils access PE sessions led by a coach once a week and a class teacher delivers a session a week. Staff are invested in the PE curriculum and are constantly developing their skills in delivering the PE sessions.

Aspire Coaching will continue to deliver PE once a week. The Lead Coach is working with the PE Lead to develop the curriculum and ensure that a range of opportunities are offered while embedding key skills.

Additional information about PE

Outdoor learning

We value the impact of physical outdoor learning and maximise opportunities to learn outdoors. These include days spent at 100 Acres woods, regular outdoor learning activities such as gardening and bird-feeding, and utilising the school grounds for our learning.

Each year the school has an activity-filled Sports week & a federation sports day in the Meonstoke school grounds. This is a community event which involves families, friends and governors. The sports leaders from Swanmore School support us during the day’s activities.

After school clubs

Our after-school care provides 3 sports-focused days per week, which are regularly changed.

A typical timetable is below:

Monday - Football

Tuesday - Creative Art & Craft

Wednesday - Multi skills

Thursday - Creative

Friday - Trigolf & Archery

A link to the Activ8 newsletter can be found here.

Please see the link here to the Statutory guidance about what is to be taught in physical education.