Physical Education (PE) at Eastfield Infant and Nursery School is very important to us and the children. We understand that PE plays a key role in supporting the children’s understanding of keeping healthy, developing positive well-being and mental health, along with other important skills such as working together, developing a sense of team work and collaboration and understanding how perseverance can impact on being able to improve and succeed.

Our vision is for ALL pupils leaving our school to be physically literate and with the knowledge, skills and motivation necessary to equip them for a healthy, active lifestyle and lifelong participation and enjoyment in physical activity and sport.

Our school values are an embedded part of PE, with ‘Sportsmanship’ being an integral part of every lesson. Children are taught skills linked to how we can work together, how teamwork can be key in being able to succeed but also how individual efforts can lead to self-improvement. They are also taught about the types of feelings and emotions that we might experience when winning and losing, finding something challenging and overcoming challenges. Along with developing the child as a whole, this skillset helps to prepare the children for their move into Key Stage 2 and competitive sports.

Eastfield’s commitment to developing all children’s language and vocabulary is also carefully planned into our PE curriculum. Lessons include ‘Word of the Day’ which link to the skills they are learning in each session. Children are encouraged to use and apply this vocabulary throughout their lessons and during any explanations and discussions around their learning.

The curriculum at Eastfield Nursery and Infant School focuses on the skills and knowledge the children need to know at each stage of their learning and allows them to apply and build upon these in various ways.

Key Stage 1 PE

Our KS1 children have 2 hours of PE built into their curriculum timetable each week, along with many other opportunities to be physically active throughout the day. This includes extra-curricular clubs both at lunchtime and afterschool, sports equipment being accessible during break times, brain breaks throughout the school day and cross-curricular opportunities for outdoor learning.

Our PE lessons are taught by a mixture of qualified sports coaches and the class teachers. Throughout the year, our PE lessons focus on:

· Bat and Ball Games

· Dance

· Gymnastics

· Outdoor and Adventurous Activities

· Athletics

Reception PE

Reception children have 1 hour of formal PE every week. These lessons focus on developing the fundamental skills of PE to support them in being ready for Year 1. Multi-skills is an important part of our PE lessons, where children will be taught about the importance of keeping healthy, the basics of how are bodies’ work, co-ordination skills (using both our fine and gross motor skills) and other cross-curricular links such as Expressive Arts and Design and Listening, Attention and Understanding skills.

In addition to the 1 hour weekly PE lesson, our Reception children are encouraged to be physically active through the planned provision within both the inside and outside environments. The Reception children have access to their own outdoor learning space throughout the day and activities are carefully planned to enable the children to develop their fine and gross motor skills.

They also have access to both extra-curricular activities held both afterschool and during lunchtimes.

Nursery PE

Our Nursery children begin by exploring body movements and being able to identify parts of the body through active songs and nursery rhymes. They will then move on to have an outdoor learning focus where the children will explore forest-school style activities in our extensive outdoor spaces. Children will be able to develop key PE based skills such as applying their gross motor skills and learning how work with others and as part of a team.

PE style activities are introduced to the Nursery children as part of our transition work and in supporting the children in becoming school-ready. The Nursery team hold a PE based sports session where our Nursery parents and carers are involved as well.

Similar to our Reception classes, the Nursery children also benefit from being active throughout the day as they take part in the carefully planning learning activities both within the inside and outside environments.

When working in our outdoor spaces, the children in both our Reception and Nursery classes are supported in skills such as:

· Evaluating risky play (i.e. rolling on skateboards down hills, travelling over balancing equipment)

· Planning (i.e. manoeuvring equipment to make their own trim trails)

· Problem solving (i.e. Moving across climbing equipment)

· Hand-eye / cross body Co-ordination development (i.e. learning to ride tricycles, bikes and scooters)

· Collaboration (i.e. stacking large construction equipment to create a shared goal).