Intent
Our physical education (PE) and fitness curriculum is intended to enable our students to explore a range of sports in a progressive curriculum. We believe that a valuable PE and Fitness curriculum enables our students to not only experience the physical nature of sport but they are able to develop their understanding of values attached to team work, rules in sports, working with others and over coming personal challenges. Through our curriculum we work on the principles of “to be Fit for.” These are linked to our characteristics and ethos of the academy, building relevance and meaningful learning for a stronger connection to the subject and our desired outcome that our students will be fit for life.
Implementation
All students have two lessons of PE and one lesson of fitness each week. We have schemes of work in place to ensure a progressive sequenced curriculum of knowledge and skills to a range of sports whilst also linking their physical education to our characteristics.
Impact
At Key Stage 4 students have the opportunity to undertake a BTEC in sport Level 1 programme as option in addition to their weekly PE lessons. Link to curriculum
Students also have a fitness lesson each week where they develop their understanding of keeping fit through strengthening and conditioning. The students have their own fitness programme written that they follow to show progress over time. We also offer 1:1 fitness sessions with a qualified instructor as part of an individualised programme of study when relevant as an intervention.
How our 6 characteristics are delivered in Fitness:
Self Awareness:
Students will learn about self-awareness by the way they use the gym. Students will have to act safely when using the machines, understanding that not acting safely could course harm to themselves or to others (each student has a checklist of what equipment they are safe to use on their own). Students will learn that how they conduct themselves in the gym will affect others training and that would not be acceptable in their local gym. Students will need to be aware of spacing (the distance between the other students and machines) and what equipment is safe to use when other students are also using the gym.
As part of keeping fit our students will develop knowledge of their own abilities and how to develop their fitness.
Commitment:
Students will learn about commitment by following their own Fitness Programs.
Each student will have a fitness program designed around their personal needs (mobility, coordination etc.) or their fitness goals (body building, football players, boxers, bike rider etc).
Students will get a new program each term, they will need to commit themselves to the new program to see results.
This will help students to understand that if you want something in life, you need to put in the time and work hard. You need to have commitment to get there.
Resilience:
Students will learn about resilience through their workout/training.
Students will learn that we have our good days when training (personal best, best times etc.) but we also have our bad days when training. (Not reaching our personal best or not doing as well as we did in our last session.)
Students will learn that this is ok, but they will need to keep going and keep pushing themselves to finish their workouts and not just give up when training is not going to plan or gets too hard.
Team Worker:
Students will learn about Team Work through group training.
Students will train together in groups when doing some drills or exercises which need more than one person.
For example, Boxing fit (using heavy bag, pad work, no competitive boxing training just fitness-based workouts) is a great way to do this as students need to be able to use pads and bags, working together and sharing equipment to train. If students don’t like the boxing fit workouts, the students can still work in groups with tennis ball drills or medicine ball training which involves; throwing, catching and functional movements. Students will need to work together to get the most out of these workouts.
Students will also learn about team work and working together by just learning how to share equipment, we all have our fitness goals and need to work together to get there.
Empathy:
Students will learn about empathy trough being in the gym and training together.
Whilst students are working on their own resilience and commitment to them themselves, they also must have an understanding that other students maybe having an off-training day, not feeling there best or struggle being in fitness because of low self-esteem. So, in our gym we show kindness along with help and support.
Problem Solving:
Students will learn about problem solving by using the gym.
In a busy gym, equipment is not always available or spaces may be in use. Students will need to find a way to be able to continue their fitness programs, whether this is done by using different equipment, pair training, group training, adapting their program or exercise order to complete their workout.