Mrs J McKinney (Curriculum Leader of PE)
Mrs R Blakey (Assistant Curriculum Leader of PE)
Mr M Lovatt (Head of Picasso house)
Mr Horton (Head of Shakespeare house)
Mr C Evans Teacher of PE
OSCA PE- ‘Challenging the mind and body for a fit, healthy, happy future’.
The PE department plays a huge role in academy life and students enjoy the subject immensely. We strive to provide our learners with the opportunity to learn and develop new practical skills and techniques across a broad range of activities. We also enable our learners to develop higher order thinking skills when analysing and evaluating performances or creating strategies and tactics to use in a competitive environment.
In PE lessons students get the chance to develop a wide range of personal life skills that are essential, not only in other subjects across the academy, but also for everyday life as young people to prepare themselves for their exams and to ready themselves for employment. Through PE students learn a variety of specific life skills and are signposted towards; self-motivation, self-management, integrity, resilience, collaboration, responsibility and communication. The students will gain knowledge of these life skills and are assessed in their application of them.
The PE curriculum is designed so that students are engaged in PE through a variety of different activities. NHS guidelines recommend that young people undertake physical exercise for an hour every day. It is part of our job as a PE department to provide a curriculum that motivates and supports students to live a sustainable, happy and healthy life by encouraging them to make healthy choices and equipping them with the knowledge and understanding to improve their health.
Throughout their OSCA PE experience students will become more competent, confident and expert in their skill techniques, and can apply them across different sports and physical activities. They will gain understanding of what makes a performance effective and how to apply these principles to their own and others’ work. We will assist them in developing the confidence and interest to get involved in exercise, sports and activities out of school and in later life, and in understanding and applying the long-term health benefits of physical activity.
Key Stage 3 core PE
Through two timetabled hours of PE a week, students focus on integrity, resilience, communication, collaboration, self- motivation and responsibility as they are the foundation of our teaching and learning and are life skills that have evolved to be specifically taught and assessed at KS3. It is these values that underpin the ‘all day, everyday’ teaching and learning when learning skills, tactics and strategies to be able to participate in a range of activities; Football, Rugby, Basketball, Volleyball, Orienteering, Climbing, Netball, Hockey, Trampolining, Fitness, Athletics, Cricket, Rounders, Softball and Tennis.
This range of activities allows them to learn and understand key aspects of the subject aiming to ensure that all students have the opportunity to:
Planning:
LTP, MTPs and Kos
*Curriculum map year 7
*Curriculum map year 8
*Knowledge in PE
*LTP for PE Key Stage 3
*Cognitive skills in PE
*Physical skills in PE
*Life skills in PE
*Year 8 MTP fitness multi gym
*Year 7 MTP cricket
*Year 7 MTP Netball
Assessment and exams: including exemplar assessments
While there are no formal exam style assessments in PE the students are graded on 3 areas- physical me, cognitive me and social me- across a range of activity areas.
Homework: including homework plans
PE homework is set every half term and has either a practical performance or a knowledge focus.
The theory tasks are research based and provide flip learning opportunities for the ‘expert knowledge’ covered in lessons.
Extra Curricular, Curriculum experiences:
The PE department offers a wide range of extra curricular opportunities for students who wish to extend the learning opportunities that are offered to them in curriculum time, the provision is frequently adapted based on student voice and links with clubs in the wider community.
Students who attend PE activities have a loyalty card which gains them extrinsic rewards and for those students who represent OSCA against other institutions, in regular fixtures and tournaments, a blazer badge is awarded to acknowledge their commitment and dedication. There is also a coveted player of the match trophy awarded after every game.
In the summer term all students get the chance to take part in and support the academy’s Sports Day. This enjoyable event is held at an external venue in the local community and brings out fierce competition between the house teams. It is a great way for students to be part of a whole school event that supports and encourages the three Olympic values; friendship, respect and excellence.
Health and Fitness (Key Stage 4 PE)
Subject Aims/Intent:
The PE department believe in the transformation power of sport and high quality PE, It’s not enough for our students to leave with great grades we want them to leave knowing how to live a sustainable healthy active lifestyle. We want to develop our students to be confident, resilient and knowledgeable so that they can keep themselves mentally and physically healthy and prepared for life.
As PE teachers we have a moral obligation to uphold- in a time where childhood obesity is at its highest- to ensure that students understand how to keep physically healthy, eat a balanced diet and maintain an active lifestyle, including giving ample opportunities for students to experience a range of activities that are linked to enrichment activities and sporting competitions.
This is even more important when you examine the context in which the school sits. Statistics from Public Health England highlight numerous factors that cannot be ignored when planning a curriculum pathway for our students. The health of people in Sandwell is generally worse than the national average with Sandwell being the 12th most deprived Local Authority out of the 317 in England, with 18,495 of children living in low income families. Life expectancy for both men and women is lower than the England average and childhood obesity rates are very high with Sandwell being ranked the 2nd highest in the region and among the worst in England. When assessing mental health disorders in children and young people, Public Health England highlight Sandwell as having the highest in the West Midlands region. Good grades are an enabler to further education, but by themselves are not going to encourage children to adopt a healthier and safer lifestyle to the one that they are likely growing up in.
We believe that undertaking a Health and Fitness qualification at Key Stage 4 educates and informs students about a number topics that can support their personal progress as well as provide them with the opportunity to gain a qualification that they can go on to use in further education and in work places. Undertaking a qualification emphasises the importance and value we place on this and allows us to specifically scaffold and revisit these areas throughout the five year PE curriculum, with a measurable outcome for our students.
The allocation of Key Stage 4 PE has been doubled to support our intent and we really believe that this has a transformational effect on our community. All pupils receive a minimum of two lessons of PE a week.
The qualification that is delivered through core PE, ensures that the students build on Key Stage 3 developing knowledge and providing support for students to be equipped to lead healthy active lifestyles. The course content covers physiology and lifestyle factors; such as smoking/ drugs/ diet and sleep- all essential life learning for our young people.
When choosing the activities that students undertake, we create a bespoke student lead curriculum pathway to motivate and engage the students to be physically active in the lessons and have an extra curricular programme that supports the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities after academy hours.
We allocate 2 hours a week across three years because it is important that students develop the learning undertaken in Key Stage 3 while getting a baseline understanding of all the aspects of the Key Stage 4 course before developing this further through the recommended 120 hours it takes to complete the qualification with the majority of the assessment being completed in year 11.
Planning:
LTP, MTPs and Kos
*LTP for NCFE Health and fitness
*NCFE Unit 1- knowledge organisers
*Cognitive skills in PE
*Physical skills in PE
*Life skills in PE
*Marking code
Assessment and exams: including exemplar assessments
Our outstanding results are a by-product of how driven we are by the intent. That and great teaching and learning teamed with successful curriculum leadership.
When we explore beyond the results, there are additional effects of the implementation and we can see some other great impact- with the emphasis on developing the holistic student- PE has an additional value to individuals and they approach PE with an open mind set. The effects of all of this meant that in a Sport England survey completed at the end of 2018, students at OSCA reported positively on many peripheral aspects that PE had a positive effect on. 48% of OSCA students felt that PE had a very positive/ positive impact on their school work, with 57% of OSCA students acknowledging that PE had a positive/ very positive impact. Quantitative and qualitative evidence exists aplenty on the positive impact PE has on the academy community and beyond.