Intent

At St Luke’s Academy we aim to inspire all of our children to love living a healthy and active life through the promotion of indoor and outdoor physical activity and mental well-being. We ensure that our environment is inclusive and accessible for all children and make adaptations and adjustments that enable all abilities and visually impaired pupils to experience physical activities together with their peers. Through our 5 be’s of learning we teach the key concepts of Movement, Agility, Balance, Co-ordination, Co-operation, Competition, Sequence, Health, Fitness, Fairness and Respect thus enabling our children to develop a deep knowledge of how their body and mind works and performs at its best both individually and when united as a team.

Our children are given the opportunity to compete at various levels including personal best challenges and other interschool challenges between houses, year groups and classes. We take part in many Burslem and Staffordshire Moorland and City Games events and hold the Gold level School Games Mark for our participation in competitive sport.

Implementation

All children at St Luke’s benefit from a broad, deep and progressive P.E curriculum following the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum. Our PE curriculum covers the six key areas of learning; swimming, gymnastics, games, outdoor and adventurous activities, dance and athletics. Planning is supported by the PEDPASS scheme of work which also helps to assess starting points and the progress they make during each of the six areas of learning. We also offer a range of additional activities such as tri-golf, archery and orienteering. We also have close links with the local High School who provides rowing and multi-skills festivals along with playground leader training.

Pupils within EYFS undertake daily physical exercise within their teaching and learning, through continuous provision, including the use of the extensive outdoor area. They also have excess to an after school club led by Be Active who focus on the fundamentals of movement.

In addition to twice weekly focused PE sessions we encourage physical movement throughout the day through the use of zoned areas on the playground and playing field. This includes a trim trail and tyre park, football pitch, netball pitch, golden mile and long-jump pit. Playground leaders rotate and timetable various activities throughout the day for each of the year groups.

To support mental well-being we have an outdoor reflective area which houses our academy’s chickens and gardens. We also offer after school yoga and meditation club.

Impact

The children of St. Luke’s will lead healthy and active lives by developing a positive attitude to the participation of physical activity and by acquiring a deep understanding of how the human body and mind works. This emphasis on the importance of exercise will hopefully lead to every child finding one form of physical activity which they love and will pursue for the rest of their lives.

They will learn how to respond to a variety of challenges by selecting and applying skills, tactics and compositional ideas that need different approaches and ways of thinking. They will understand what it takes to persevere, succeed and acknowledge others’ success whilst embedding the core values of fairness and respect.