Physical Education

At Dunston Hill, we believe that high-quality physical education (PE) should be an integral part of the whole school curriculum, and we aim to engage both the children and our community, to create a buzz for learning around this subject. Through PE, our children learn to develop many important qualities including: respect, resilience, dedication and ambition, leading to improved concentration, attitude, and academic achievements. Our PE curriculum sparks excitement through offering a wide range of physical activities, as well as opportunities for the children to compete. We ensure that our PE curriculum is inclusive so that pupils of all abilities can access the range of activities which we offer. Our mission is to continue to improve the quality of PE and to promote high levels of enjoyment and enthusiasm, so that our children have a strong desire to get involved. Our curriculum helps children to become confident, in a way which supports their health and fitness throughout their lives. Therefore, we believe that our children should be physically active every day, whether this is through daily physical activity, PE lessons, active learning throughout other areas of the curriculum, active lunchtimes or extra-curricular activities. We aim to inspire our children and create pathways for them to continue to be active beyond school, and we will continue to work alongside outside agencies which will help to generate positive interaction in the community.

We encourage our children to be ambitious and explore new sports. Our curriculum is broad and ensures that there is a clear progression of skills in the following areas: invasion games, net and wall games, strike and field games, gymnastics, dance, swimming, and outdoor and adventurous activities. Our curriculum also ensures that the different areas of sport are revisited each academic year to enable the children to revisit prior learning and to build on previously taught skills. At the beginning of every lesson, children recap their learning and for units such as dance, the children repeat parts of previous lessons and then build on their routines. Some of the skills taught are transferrable and they can apply these to many different sports, such as attacking and defending, therefore these skills are often revisited. Our school ensures that children are active for a minimum of 60 minutes per day and this is covered through active play times, running the Daily Mile, ‘Fitness Frenzy’ sessions and active learning across the curriculum. Additionally, the majority of our children participate in two high-quality PE lessons, each week. Extra-curricular activities are also offered throughout the year by both staff in school and external coaches. In addition, our children are invited to participate in sporting events within the local area. This is an inclusive approach which endeavours to encourage not only physical development but also good mental wellbeing. These events also develop teamwork and leadership skills and most importantly they allow the children to have fun. Throughout their time at school, we believe that it is vital for our children take risks and develop life skills, and therefore, once our children reach Year 4, they attend weekly swimming lessons

At Dunston Hill, we motivate our children to engage in a variety of sports through quality teaching that is engaging and fun. From our lessons, our children learn to take responsibility for their own health and fitness, many of whom also enjoy the success of competitive sports. We equip our children with the necessary skills and a love for sport. They will hopefully grow up to live happy and healthy lives utilising the skills and knowledge acquired through PE.