Curriculum Intent

‘Physically educated persons are those who have learned to arrange their lives in such a way that the habitual physical activities they freely engage in make a distinctive contribution to their wider flourishing.’ James MacAllister

Our PE curriculum at St Cuthbert's is designed and constantly reviewed to meet the needs of all of our students. We aim to foster the joy of learning through providing a broad and balanced curriculum, enabling all students to find activities they enjoy. We promote an aspirational culture where all students are provided with opportunities to experience success. As a department, we believe that Physical Education is a vehicle which provides students with the opportunity to holistically develop the skills, attitudes, values, knowledge and understanding of lifelong participation in physical activity. The provision that we strive to provide is well balanced between participation and performance for all students. Within PE, students have the opportunity to develop a wide range of transferable knowledge and skills which will aid them in their future learning, apprenticeships or employment, whilst taking into account the improving local economy and labour market.

As a department, our intent is to ensure that our curriculum provides students with effective opportunities to:

Be confident and resilient individuals who lead healthy active lifestyles
Provide students with new sporting experiences and opportunities which stimulate a love for learning both academically and practically
Develop employability skills and have an awareness of clear progression routes that follow Key Stage 4, bearing in mind the local economy and labour market.

Within lessons we consistently use Rosenshine’s principles of instruction to ensure effective learning takes place. We do this by ensuring that there is a review of learning at the start of every lesson, ensuring that new content is introduced in small steps (with ample time to practice), using questioning for understanding, providing model answers/demonstrations and providing scaffolds for difficult tasks.