Physical Education

At Swalecliffe we are determined to deliver both a high quality and a varied amount of PE and School sports for every child, to give them every chance to be active and informed of the importance of living a healthy life. Children are taught two sessions per week of PE throughout the school.

Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1

Children develop fundamental movement skills, becoming increasingly competent and confident. They access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others. They engage in competitive (both against self and against others) and co-operative physical activities in a range of increasingly challenging situations.

Children are taught to:

• Master basic movements including running, jumping, throwing and catching, as well as developing balance, agility and co-ordination and beginning to apply these in a range of activities.
• Participate in team games, developing simple tactics for attacking and defending.
• Perform dances using simple movement patterns.

Key Stage 2

Children continue to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement. They enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other. They develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports, and learn to evaluate and recognise their own success.

Children are taught to:

• Use running, jumping, throwing and catching in isolation and in combination.
• Play competitive games, modified where appropriate (for example badminton, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, netball, rounders and tennis) and apply basic principles suitable for attacking and defending.
• Develop flexibility, strength, technique, control and balance (for example, through athletics and gymnastics).
• Take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team.
• Compare their performances with previous ones and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.

Swimming

We deliver swimming lessons at Whitstable Swimming Pool to all of our Year R, Year 2 and Year 4 pupils. Living as close to the sea, we strongly believe that all children should feel confident within the water.

Children are taught to:

• Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres.

• Use a range of strokes effectively (for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke).
• Perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

Our school has been recognised for its excellent delivery of PE and Sport with School Games Mark Gold.

At Swalecliffe, PE and School sports are currently being developed further with the Primary PE and school sport premium funding (see this report under Reports). The key areas for development of the funding are Subject Leadership, Staff CPD opportunities, Healthy Living, Leadership and Sports clubs including School-club links and Inter school competition.

In the last academic year 242 Swalecliffe children represented the school in at least one sport, the most so far. This academic year we are hoping to better that number again. A list of all the tournaments, that we are hoping to take part in this year are listed in the Tournaments document below.

We are very involved with the local Schools Football League. We currently have three boys teams and one girls team for Year 5 and 6 children. We have many local club links. We regularly attend Herne Bay Hockey Club Tournaments, which are open to all children from Year 3 – 6. Apetti Tennis, also come and deliver some free tennis sessions to our Year 1 children each year.

We also try to make the very most of our local environment. Every year, the Year 4 pupils are taken down to the local Tankerton Slopes to undergo their Beach Orienteering as part of our Outdoor & Adventurous Activities.

We run regular House tournaments in a variety of different sports. This year we are aiming to develop this further through competitions run by the teachers as well as the new Sports Crew team. The Sports Crew Team are a group of Year 6 children who have now had specific training to develop as many opportunities for intra-school tournaments as possible.