Harry Gosling Primary School

Physical Education at Harry Gosling

At Harry Gosling Primary School, we aim to develop physically literate pupils who are confident, competent and motivated to lead active, healthy lives. We provide pupils with opportunities to develop their physical skills, tactical understanding and performance ability across a wide range of activities.

Our curriculum ensures that all pupils build the knowledge and skills needed to participate successfully in sport and physical activity, while also developing key life skills such as resilience, teamwork, leadership and self-evaluation. We believe that Physical Education plays a vital role in supporting pupils’ physical, social and emotional wellbeing, and we strive for all children to leave primary school with a lifelong positive attitude towards physical activity.

The PE curriculum at Harry Gosling is structured around six key strands, which underpin all teaching and learning:

- Movement and Coordination

- Ball and Object Control

- Attacking and Defending

- Gymnastics and Dance (Performance)

- Athletics and Physical Development

- Teamwork, Leadership and Evaluation

These strands are carefully sequenced from EYFS to Year 6, ensuring that pupils build knowledge and skills progressively over time. In EYFS and KS1, pupils develop fundamental movement skills and basic object control, which form the foundation for all future learning. As pupils move into KS2, they apply and refine these skills within structured sports, developing tactical understanding, decision-making and performance quality.

Lessons are designed to:

- Build core physical skills through repetition and practice

- Provide opportunities to apply skills in game situations

- Develop tactical understanding through small-sided games

- Encourage reflection and evaluation to improve performance

The curriculum is designed to promote transferable skills, enabling pupils to apply learning across sports such as hockey, basketball, tennis, rounders, rugby and cricket.

Changing and PE Kits

Children are welcome to come to school wearing their PE kit on the day of PE. Appropriate PE kit includes track suit bottoms or shorts, a white t-shirt and black trainers. For more information on the PE kit, please see the school uniform page of our website.

Swimming

At Harry Gosling, we adhere to National Curriculum expectations to offer specialised swimming instruction so that children in KS2 are able to swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of 25 metres. Children are also taught to use a range of different strokes effectively and to perform safe self-rescue in in different water-based situations. We take Years 4 and 5 to swimming lessons at a local pool.

As swimming is part of the National Curriculum, children are expected to participate as long as they are well enough to be in school. They require non-restrictive swimwear and swimming cap and must bring a towel with them. Parent meetings and letters will be sent before with more detailed information before swimming lessons begin.

Extra-curricular activities

Harry Gosling provides a range of PE-related activities for children at the end of the school day, at lunchtime and before the school day begins, at breakfast club. Out of school hours activities encourage children to further develop their skills in a range of areas. The school sends details of the current club activities to parents and carers at the beginning of each term. Harry Gosling also plays fixtures against other local schools. This introduces a competitive element to team games, and allows the children to put into practice the skills that they have developed in their lessons. These opportunities foster a sense of team spirit and cooperation amongst our children.