Physical Education

Staff

  • Daniel Griffiths:
    Responsibilities: Head of Physical Education, Head of Enrichment
    BSC Recreation Studies, Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education
    PGCE Physical Education, Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education
    MA Education, University of Central England
    NPQH, National School of School Leadership
  • Stuart Campbell:
    Responsibilities: Key Stage 3 Co-ordinator
    BA Physical Education & Biology, Chester College
    PGCE, Bedford College
    Diploma in Exercise & Physiology & Sport Nutrition, Chester College, UEFA “A” Licence
  • Sam D’Arcy:
    Responsibilities: Teacher of Physical Education
    BSc (Hons) Sport and Physical Education, Cardiff Metropolitan University
    PGCE Physical Education, Worcester University
  • Chris Conway:
    Responsibilities: Deputy Head teacher
    B Ed (Hons) The Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Polytechnic
    NPQH National School of School Leadership
    UEFA “A” Licence

Statement of Intent for Physical Education

Intent

At Handsworth Grammar School the intent of teaching Physical Education is to give children the tools and understanding required to make a positive impact in their own physical health and well-being. We want all children to experience a wide variety of sports and physical skills which will enhance life-long fitness and life choices. PE can challenge and promote self-esteem through the development of physical confidence and problem solving. It can teach children to cope with both success and failure in competitive, individual and team based physical activities.

Implementation

PE at Handsworth Grammar School is taught only by PE specialists in KS 3 and GCSE PE, other Class teachers support during KS4 Games and we also utilise qualified sports coaches. Students have equal opportunities to take part in a range of sports and physical activities within a supportive environment where effort as well as success is recognised.

At Handsworth Grammar School the PE curriculum is structured to provide a range of sports experiences during which every child participates to develop their skills and learning through competitive, team and individual sports. Through our provision students can aim to flourish at sports in which they have a particular interest or flair for. Students with additional needs are provided with appropriate support to enable them to take part and gain confidence in skills development.

We teach the National Curriculum, supported by a clear skills and knowledge progression. This ensures that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all students.

Students gain experience of a variety of fundamental skills. Students take part in individual skills, group skills and team games, using   equipment appropriate for their age. During KS3 children will have a series of structured swimming sessions.

Impact

  • The ability to acquire new knowledge and skills exceptionally well and develop an in-depth understanding of PE.
  • The willingness to practise skills in a wide range of different activities and situations, alone, in small groups and in teams and to apply these skills in chosen activities to achieve exceptionally high levels of performance.
  • High levels of physical fitness.
  • A healthy lifestyle, achieved by eating sensibly, avoiding smoking, drugs and alcohol and exercising regularly.
  • The ability to remain physically active for sustained periods of time and an understanding of the importance of this in promoting long-term health and well-being.
  • The ability to take the initiative and become excellent young leaders, organising and officiating, and evaluating what needs to be done to improve, and motivating and instilling excellent sporting attitudes in others.
  • Exceptional levels of originality, imagination and creativity in their techniques, tactics and knowledge of how to improve their own and others’ performance and the ability to work independently for extended periods of time without the need of guidance or support.
  • A keen interest in PE. A willingness to participate eagerly in every lesson, highly positive attitudes and the ability to make informed choices about engaging fully in extra-curricular sport.
  • Where able the ability to swim at least 25 metres before the end of Year 7 or have sufficient proficiency to save their own life if needed, and a knowledge of how to remain safe in and around water.

HIGH QUALITY PE

At HGS we strive to implement high quality PE in all of our lessons. The following points are indicative of what high quality PE looks like in our department.

  • Teachers know that PE includes clearly defined knowledge that can usefully be categorised into declarative and procedural knowledge. These forms of knowledge in PE are often inextricably linked.
  • Teachers know that PE is not synonymous with physical activity or sport. They share similarities but also have important differences.
  • Leaders and teachers have thought carefully about what it is to know more and do more in PE. This understanding is informed by the national curriculum’s aims and component knowledge has been identified to develop pupils’ competence.
  • A strong foundation of FMS is developed, starting in the early years. It sequentially develops through transitional activities into more specialised sport and physical activity contexts. FMS are a precondition to accessing the later, more specialised movement patterns required for competence in sport and physical activity.
  • Teachers make sure that pupils’ movement is not only efficient and effective but intelligent and context-related. They make sure pupils have knowledge of rules, strategies and tactics in order to direct and guide successful movement.
  • Knowledge of healthy participation includes important knowledge of key concepts pertaining to health, participation and physical activity. These are taught systematically, honour the specific learning context and increase in complexity throughout the curriculum.
  • Teachers and leaders recognise that learning takes time. They make sure that pupils have enough time to revisit and develop their knowledge within a context before moving too quickly on to a new sport or physical activity.
  • Leaders planning the curriculum are clear that the sport or physical activity being taught matters.
  • They select physical activities and sports based on capacity to develop pupils’ competence within PE. They use the 3 pillars (motor competence; rules, strategies and tactics; and healthy participation) to help identify key concepts to teach and for pupils to learn and build pupils’ understanding incrementally.
  • The PE curriculum meets the needs of all pupils. All pupils feel included and able to succeed within the subject.
  • The extra-curricular offer is available for all pupils. It provides opportunities to build, develop and refine knowledge and in this way benefits from a symbiotic relationship with the curriculum subject PE.
  • The pedagogical approaches selected reflect the needs of pupils and the needs of the curriculum content.
  • All pupils are supported to know more and do more. All pupils benefit from high-quality instruction, practise and feedback.
  • Teaching activities and approaches make sure pupils revisit and re-encounter important knowledge.
  • Practice is domain-specific, desirably difficult and goal directed, with the aim of all pupils improving. It gives pupils time to build, develop and refine their knowledge.
  • Feedback for pupils focuses on how to improve.
  • Pupils have high-quality opportunities to learn component knowledge. Teachers move onto more complex content once pupils have secured important foundational knowledge.
  • Competition is appropriately positioned when pupils have the knowledge needed to access the demands of the competition. This is regardless of whether the competition is against oneself or others.
  • Pedagogical adaptations for pupils with SEND to access and achieve success are specific to the needs of the pupil and retain educational integrity to meet the aims of the national curriculum.
  • Teachers select the most appropriate assessment approaches to give all pupils opportunities to show what they know, can do and understand.
  • Formative assessment is ongoing and provides information that teachers use to inform subsequent teaching.
  • Assessment approaches should identify the component knowledge pupils have acquired and have not yet acquired.
  • Pupils have a comprehensive understanding of what it is to know more and do more in PE. This is not narrowed to only value performance in specific sports or physical activities.
  • The inferences made from assessment data collected are carefully considered alongside other forms of assessment data to provide an accurate picture of what each pupil can do and what they need to do to improve.
  • Pupils are explicitly taught how to self- and peer-assess, using clear and precise success criteria to give accurate and meaningful interpretations.
  • Teachers using technology to support assessment carefully weigh up the strengths and limitations and the role it plays in providing accurate assessment information that directly relates to improving competence in PE

CURRICULUM CONTENT -HGS

  • We have shaped the curriculum to be similar in breadth and ambition with the National Curriculum
  • The sports we teach are done so with the intention to ensure that we address the pillars of progression drawing upon the expertise of staff and the needs of the students
  • We have made decisions on content based upon that which is necessary and sports which are sufficient. Swimming for example is on the curriculum as it is deemed by the school to be a necessity.
  • We endeavour to ensure that students not only know the activities that they will be doing but why they are doing it, how it will be implemented and what the impact this will have on the three pillars of progression.
  • We recognise that students especially in a boys school want to do football but this is delivered in games and only for a maximum of 12 weeks. Other activities in games include rugby, hockey, athletics, cricket, softball and rounders. In the PE curriculum pupils cover handball, basketball, badminton, table tennis, volleyball and fitness.

LEARNING

  • We work in blocks of 7-8 weeks at ks 3 and 12 weeks at ks 4. We have a flexible curriculum that adjusts to the needs of the pupils. If a teacher deems that more time is needed there is flexibility for this to take place. We want to ensure that knowledge gaps are limited because of trying to fit a certain scheme into a set number of weeks.

SEQUENCING

  • Lessons are planned to develop prior learning. We recognise that we will often have to revisit, refine and build on key movement skills before introducing additional complexity.
  • Where possible we transfer sequence work into different domains e.g. dribbling in basketball and the tactical aspect of this can be used in hockey when dribbling.

SEND

  • Although we have limited SEND pupils it is essential that we provide to the needs of all in lessons.
  • We plan and adapt lessons according to the needs that are known but also in consultation with parents and pupils. We are not the experts in this field and so must ensure that we have the relevant context to understand how best to adapt our lessons to allow pupils with SEND to still have an ambitious curriculum.

We adapt lessons so that it allows the pupils to be aspirational

 

PEDAGOGY

  • We believe in the department that attainment is not fixed. Students do not have to be between a certain set assessment criterion. Although we have assessment levels these are a guide and are not absolute. Pupils need to know that through instruction, practice and feedback that they can know more and do more in a given activity.
  • Teachers at HGS have excellent subject knowledge and in most cases can explain, answer and predict pupils’ misconceptions. We are also not afraid to say ‘we don’t know’ but we will find out.
  • We are finding that the level of knowledge, movement skills and general co ordination of pupils is lower than it ever has been therefore for many they are novices at sport. We have shifted our starting point in many sports to allow for this.
  • All PE teachers at HGS are confident at demonstrating. We pride ourselves on being able to follow correct technical models and being able to explain the process that has been shown. We are confident that we show both the procedural (know -how) and declarative (know -what) knowledge needed. To ensure our more able students contribute to teaching they are also used to demonstrate if we know that they are following the correct technical models.
  • We recognise that practice is essential in sport and we use instruction and guidance to allow progression. We are keen for practice to take place until a skill is learned that is why we have a flexible period for learning to take place.
  • Because of having good subject knowledge, we aim to give detailed feedback to students. We recognise that when teaching large groups that it is not possible to give feedback to all but we will try to give instruction in each lesson to 50% or more pupils. We try to ensure that students who have less competency are given feedback more than those who have the knowledge to self-reflect.
  • We pride ourselves on students being active in lessons. We will give instruction to pupils during lessons either by plenaries as a whole or stopping smaller groups, but generally instruction is given as tasks are undertaken. Practice is the key to learning.
  • Self-assessment and peer assessment are an important part of the planned lesson at HGS. For both to be effective we make sure that we share the learning intentions clearly so that pupils have an accurate mental model of what success looks like. We make sure that pupils know how to assess, have clear guidelines on what is being assessed and know how to give feedback.
  • Technology is an area that we improving in. We use the large TV to show examples of good motor competence, tactics etc. We have tablets that we use to record students.

PE CURRICULUM

The aim of the PE and Games curriculum is to allow pupils to gain access to a variety of activities, enabling them to enjoy and develop, promoting lifelong participation.

Students in Years 7-9 currently undertake 50 minutes of PE and 100 minutes of games lessons a week (2.5 hours in total). Year 10,11 &13 students have a 100 minute games lesson every week. (1.5 hours per week).

The Year 7 & 8 PE curriculum is broad and varied, allowing boys to experience a wide range of activities such as Table Tennis, handball, basketball, badminton, volleyball, health and fitness, short tennis and swimming.

The games curriculum focuses predominantly on team sports such as football, hockey, rugby, cricket, rounders, lacrosse, Gaelic football,  softball but does include athletics in the summer.

In year 10 & 11 students are based in the on site school facilities, local leisure centre and the school fields. KS 4 games lessons are focussed upon the principles of Step into Sport where students are encouraged to organise and lead their own sessions.  Activities include football, table tennis, basketball, volleyball, cricket, badminton, hockey,

Enrichment – Year 12 students can choose sport as part of their enrichment programme. Students can choose the activity that they participate in.

HGS takes great pride in its sporting achievements and all pupils are actively encouraged to play their part in what is an integral part of life at the school.

GCSE PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The GCSE course is designed to encourage students to investigate PE more carefully, by looking at the areas of human performance, developments in sport today and undertaking practical activities. Students who wish to choose this subject should bear in mind that theoretical work makes up a substantial proportion of the course.

60 % of the course is theory based with students studying two units and then assessed by taking two 2 x 1 hour written exams. The two units are ‘Applied anatomy and physiology, Physical training’ and ‘Socio-cultural influences, Sports psychology, Health fitness and well being’. These units look at how the human body works and functions during activity, the impact of diet and training and the different ways that we can train. Also the influences that impact upon participation, engagement patterns by different social group and the impact of sponsorship and the media.

40 % of the course is practical based in which students are required to demonstrate effective performance, the use of tactics or techniques and the ability to observe rules and conventions in three chosen activities. Students who undertake the course must be proficient in three sports. One of which must be an individual sport and one a team sport, the other can be either of these. An indication of the level that would be expected is that the student represents the school or is attached to a club where they play frequently. The acceptance of the students on the course will be decided by the PE department who have first-hand knowledge of the level of performances shown by students.

Students also have to complete one controlled assessment ‘The analysing and Evaluating Performance task’. This assessment requires research undertaken in school and at home. It is then written up in a formal setting at school.

 

Attainment

A graduated unified assessment scale is used from Year 7 to Year 11. This is based on the new 9-1 GCSE grade scale. This chart demonstrates the expected trajectory of students progressing from Year 7 to Year 11

PE Assessment Flow Diagram

EXTRA CURRICULAR

We have an extensive extra-curricular programme with an activity happening every day after school. We provide a broad number of activities that are delivered to those students who want to participate for fun and those who want to extend into more competitive sport. We have many school teams and we are a successful sporting school winning many competitions and leagues.

We have trips to sporting events to allow students to see sport in a different arena to that which they are used to.

Please click here to view a list of students who represent their sport at district and national level.

Please click here to view Aston League and Aston Cup Fixtures and Results.