96% of Penair students achieved Grade 4 or above in Sport, Health & Fitness subjects (3 Year Average) compared to a national average of 72%
We recognise all of these factors and want to provide a curriculum that provides opportunities for all these different pupils to enjoy, fulfil potential and prepare them for life in modern Britain and employment.
In designing our curriculum we have given much thought as to what qualities we would like our Y11 pupils to have. Pupils having experienced 360 hours of SHF over five years. We would hope that our curriculum would contribute to the following qualities;
- Has enjoyed all, most or some of their SHF experiences.
- Is physically literate
- Demonstrates independence in pursuing SHF activities
- Has the confidence to ‘have-a-go’ at a problem
- Is equipped with sufficient skills for future learning
- Has always felt appropriately challenged
- Does not question participating in wet, cold weather
- Can demonstrate resilience
- Can work as part of a team
- Has had the opportunity to lead others
- Knows their own strengths and weaknesses
- Understands the importance of living a healthy & active lifestyle
- Knows where to go in the community to pursue a sport/activity of their choice.
- Has experienced variety with sufficient depth.
- Developed a high enough skill level to play inter-school competitive sport if they so choose.
- Is used to consistent high standards and expectations of kit, behaviour for learning and respect for others.
Resilience, confidence, self-esteem, respect, honesty, team-work, leadership, problem solving, commitment, employability, managing emotions and independence underpin our curriculum here at Penair.
Implementation: We deliver lessons in 120 minute blocks which maximises the time that pupils are physically active in their lessons. We have experienced delivering lessons in two-60 minute lessons but found that far more time was wasted by changing etc and we far prefer the model we currently have.
We deliver ‘Schemes Of Learning’ (SOL) in half-term blocks and in each half term block pupils will experience two activities which come from two different activity areas of the National Curriculum. The SOL have been designed to be adapted by staff according to the ability/experience of the class in front of them and have moved away from being heavily prescriptive schemes of work to allowing staff to personalise the learning for their classes.
Classes are same-sex and same-ability which we find really helps to maximise each child’s chance of making the best progress possible. It enables us to fine-tune differentiation and support strategies for individual pupils in a manageable and effective way.
Each lesson will start with a Learning Objective (taken from the SOL) which will be the main learning theme of the lesson. Tiered learning outcomes are also shared with the class in order to give pupils aspirational targets for each lesson and we use our Gold, Silver and Bronze assessment system for this purpose (see separate section on assessment). Pupils’ progress is then tracked by staff across each SOL which then informs parents and pupils of their progress against our expected progress charts for each year group, and links into the whole-school assessment procedure.
Pupils experience variety in their SHF programme but with sufficient depth in each activity so as to ensure pupils have the opportunity of mastering skills and concepts rather than brushing over the surface in an attempt to have too broad a programme.
Within lessons teachers will use a variety of AFL strategies so pupils have the best chance of understanding, refining and mastering key learning themes and concepts. Our staff are very experienced practitioners which allows them to respond and adapt quickly to learners needs, using assessment as an aid to learning rather than for its own sake.
Rigorous policies and expectations on behaviour for learning, kit and respect for others allow us to create effective learning environments for our pupils and this is a consistent theme across the faculty.
Impact: As a result of careful planning, the consideration of the wide-ranging backgrounds and abilities of our pupils and a clear vision of what attributes/experiences and qualities we would like to see in our pupils after 360 hours of SHF, we feel that our curriculum has a positive impact in achieving our aims and objectives for the vast majority of pupils we teach.
In various pupil voice surveys we have conducted over the years, the vast majority of pupils understand and support our approach to curriculum design and class structures. As professionals we feel that the SHF curriculum here at Penair is modern and aspirational.
At KS4 we respect pupil’s individual strengths, talents and interests and try to develop these in three distinct pathways: Performance; Participation & Leadership. Pupils are placed on a pathway according to their suitability for each and/or their successful application to pursue the Sports Leadership award scheme. The 3-pathway curriculum programmes will differ slightly as will the focus of learning objectives and assessment expectations. We try where we can to give pupils at least one ‘community-based’ opportunity where they can enjoy using a facility away from school in order to encourage a breadth of interest.
The extremely low number of ‘non-participants’ particularly in KS4 is testament that we must be getting something right. Our understanding is that this is not the case in many schools and we are proud of this statistic.
We feel that our learners develop detailed knowledge and skills across many activities and that the way we structure classes in KS3&4 ensures that pupils have every chance of making excellent progress.
Our 2-tier offer at KS4 for level 2 courses has proven to be a very good decision, with results consistently above national averages. It is hoped that we will move to a 3-tier offer in the coming years where timetable and staff will allow.
We feel that the numbers of pupils attending extra-curricular clubs is linked to positive experiences within the curriculum and in times where pupils have more distractions than ever to keep them ‘inactive’, we are very pleased with this.
We consider the vast majority of our Y11 pupils to be able to make positive choices about living healthy and active lifestyles and would know where to go in the community in order to pursue activities of their choice.