P.E. (Physical Education)

Subject Lead: Mrs Lauren Rendle

At Stanley Park Infants’ our vision for Physical Education and Sport is that every child has access a broad, engaging PE curriculum with opportunities for children to engage in regular physical activity and become competent and confident participants. The fundamental movement skills are at the heart of all our lessons, ensuring children are proficient and have mastered these ready to apply them to a wide range of physical activities and team sports.

Our approach is to empower children to make links between exercise and its positive impact on physical and mental well-being, as well as promoting healthy active lifestyles. We do this by offering opportunities for children to increase their participation in sport through an extensive extra-curricular club and enrichment programme as well as interschool competitions in the hope that children develop a love and passion for sport and continue this into their later lives. Children explore and build on a variety of physical and interpersonal skills such as teamwork and communication skills and learn to apply these skills in a variety of team and individual scenarios. We also ensure our children understand the meaning of good mental health and wellbeing, providing opportunities for discussion, circle times and mindfulness activities.

How we teach PE 

PE lessons begin with a recapping of previous knowledge, skills and vocabulary to strengthen the learning and make links in upcoming lessons. This allows children to understand why they are studying a topic and how it links into PE and Sport. We use Real PE and Real Gym to aid our lesson planning and guide our skills progression across the school. Lessons start with a pulse raiser and stretches, so children are able to learn and develop their knowledge of how the body responds to exercise and the importance of a warm up. Our pathway for progression allows children to learn and master a simplified skill to build upon with multiple levels of challenge to continue to practise, improve and then apply the new skill in a competitive environment. Children are also able to develop their creativity through our PE lessons by developing their own gymnastic and dance sequences.

Health and Fitness Fortnight

Each year we hold a Health and Fitness Fortnight with lots of fun workshops and activities for the children to try new sports, learn new skills and develop their love of PE and sports. We have had a number of specialised external coaches deliver exciting sports workshops over the years including gymnastics, handball, yoga, dance and tennis. We have also had an athlete visit from a national level sprinter to inspire and encourage our pupils to try a new skill. The purpose of Health and Fitness Fortnight is to focus on both the children's physical and mental health. We learn about the importance of positive mental health and practise this through mindfulness activities and circle times.

We believe it is really important to model an enthusiastic attitude towards keeping active to our pupils and the best way to do this is getting involved! The whole school workouts that have taken place have been a huge success and an enjoyable event for all - children, staff and parents.

During these fortnights we have also taken this as an opportunity to raise funds for charities through sponsored sporting events. In 2018, 2020 and 2022 we held a Mini Marsden March for The Royal Marsden hospital. It was a whole school event involving children and their families, where we walked around our local park to raise money for a local charity. Additionally in 2019 and 2022, during our Health and Fitness Fortnights, we raised money for the NSPCC.

In 2021 Health and Fitness Fortnight looked a little different with the school closure, however we still wanted to get children and families moving, dancing and working out at home! The staff at Stanley Park Infants' School came together to create two workout videos and a dance video inspired by Jumpstart Jonny. The children loved being able to able to connect with their teachers and have fun whilst learning from home. Why not have a look and join in with some of the brilliant videos that were created below!

Brain Breaks

We use a range of resources to provide our children with high energy and calming breaks throughout the school day. These are quick breaks between lessons or tasks to allow their minds to reset, ready for learning again. This includes Jumpstart Jonny dance videos, Go Noodle guided dance, yoga and mindfulness and running the daily mile around our racetrack in the playground. The children love these as a chance to release energy or calm down, which helps them focus and concentrate in the following lesson. Take a look at the photos and videos below of these in action!

Enrichment Activities

At Stanley Park we strive to offer our children with a wide variety of opportunities to learn and develop a wide range of skills. In addition to the excellent PE lessons taught by our class teachers, each week children in Reception have football lessons and children in Key Stage 1 have tennis, multiskills and dance lessons. These are run by brilliant external coaches and the children look forward to these every week. We also offer a range of extra-curricular sports clubs including tennis, football, multiskills and dance.

Our Year 2's loved their lunchtime 5 a side football tournament with Leo. All teams showed excellent collaboration and resilience when the games were tough, it was so much fun working together to get through to the next round. We had lots of brilliant attackers and super defenders, and the winning team were so excited to have their medals awarded to them by Mr D'Souza.

We also enjoyed participating in the Stanley Park Euros! It was a tough competition as so many teams took part. Portugal and Belgium made the finals and the whole of Year 2 came our to support and cheer on their chosen team with flags and banners. It was a close game but Portugal won with some fantastic goals! We were so proud of everyone who participated and enjoyed cheering on England and other teams throughout.

This year we had Sports Day in our year groups, it was such an exciting morning! Each year group participated in a range of activities and races, including obstacle races, hurdles, topic races and a sprint. Everybody had lots of fun cheering on their peers and working as a team.

Keeping Active at Home