Physical Education

Students follow a differentiated National Curriculum and participate in a variety of activities including football, basketball, trampolining, yoga, short tennis, badminton, fitness and cricket. They also engage in outdoor and adventure activities and participate in inclusive inter-school sports events such as boccia and new age kurling.

In Dance Students develop core physical skills as well as confidence, body awareness, and enhancing their communication skills with an emphasis on creativity and self-expression. Working in groups offers our students the chance to be supportive and collaborative, to offer and receive feedback, and to learn appropriate physical contact with others. Dance develops Numeracy and Literacy skills; an awareness of space, use of shape, pattern and sequencing and opportunities for story-telling.  

Through liturgical dance students are given the opportunity to express spirituality across the curriculum. 

SWIMMING

Swimming takes place through the key stages at a hydrotherapy pool. This is the perfect environment for students to become confident and enjoy being in the water, working with others while participating at their own pace.

Lessons are about developing confidence and independence in the water. Students learn through simple practices how their bodies move, and work towards being able to float. They develop ways to move in the water through gliding and adding leg and arm movements. Gradually developing and linking movements into strokes.

Swimming develops coordination skills and fitness and students learn how swimming activities can be part of a healthy lifestyle. Students also learn pool safety and how to behave, while developing independent skills of changing.

YOTISM

Yoga has been introduced to the school through Yotism. This is a form of yoga which can act to help our students to balance, regulate and cope better with day to day life.

What is yoga?

Yoga works as a powerful healing tool. It can have positive effects on the brain, the emotions and the neurosensory system (sensory functions of the nervous system). As such it can have profound changes on anyone with neuro-divergence (difficulty in brain function and behaviour traits) and developmental or physical challenges, such as those faced by our students.

Yoga introduces a deep sense of body awareness, mindfulness, motor-neuron organisation and gently resets the nervous system to create a shift from survival mode to a feeling of internal safety and coping. The sensory system is given space to process, the muscles slowly come out of a contracted state (example from yotism), and attention is brought more to a quiet self.

Students develop a sense of internal control and calm, relaxation, self-awareness and positive internal dialogue, they become better able to cope with others and the surrounding environment without stress.

This works as the brain, nervous system and self all connect physically, cognitively and emotionally through the right kind of physical movement, mindful approach and nervous system stimulation. Yoga can balance and organise the brain, and it can calm the neurosensory system. You can gently guide the nervous system from the survival mode (sympathetic nervous system) to a feeling of internal safety and coping (parasympathetic nervous system). Yoga has been introduced to the school through Yotism. This is a form of yoga which can act to help our students to balance, regulate and cope better with day to day life.

Key Stage 2

Physical Education lessons are taught in class groups. Students work on developing a broad range of skills, learn to use them in a variety of ways, in order to link actions into sequences of movement. Students also develop communication, team work and competitive skills while also increasing their understanding of how to improve, how to evaluate their own and other’s performance and how to recognise the way their body responds to exercise.

Students also have opportunities to participate in school sports events such as sports day, multi-school sports activities and inter-school events on and off-site. Plus experience outdoor and adventurous activities.

Key Stage 3

Students will build on their physical development and skills in the activities learned in KS3. They will work on being more competent and confident in the different sports. Students will increase their knowledge and participate in more structured conditioned games to develop their understanding. They will learn different roles in the sports such as attacking and defending and as well as how to score and officiate. Practices will improve their ability to be part of a team, to challenge themselves and to think more about their own and others performances. Students will think about how to develop skills and techniques and increase their ability to produce longer performances.