PE
Aims
In the Physical Education Department, our primary aim is for students to enjoy the subject and adopt healthy attitudes to lifelong participation. To help us achieve this we have designed a curriculum that provides all students with a broad and balanced foundation of activities in Year 7 and 8, before giving them the chance to make informed choices about the pathways they would like to specialise in as they get older. We are a forward-thinking department that takes on board cutting edge national research as well as conducting our own research, to help us provide the best package we can for our students.
We judge our success in a number of ways:
· Student participation rates within the curriculum, at dinner times and after school clubs, as well as enrolment in our community partner clubs.
· Student progress against National Curriculum Levels for Key Stage 3 and examination courses in Key Stage 4. Our results are excellent.
· We also survey students about their opinions and discuss their preferences with them informally on a regular basis.
Key aspects of the curriculum
· In Key Stage 3 all students are timetabled for 2 hours of PE per week. They are taught in single sex groups of mixed ability. However we do introduce setting and sometimes allow students to work in mixed sex groups if we judge that it will be beneficial to those cohorts.
· In Y7 and 8 students follow a compulsory curriculum including athletics, dance (with specialist teachers), health-related fitness, gymnastics (inc. trampolining), basketball, netball, football, rugby (boys only), net games (eg badminton, tennis, volleyball), striking games (eg cricket and rounders) and self-defence. Small amounts of table tennis and orienteering are also included.
· In Y9 students are given the opportunity to choose pathways for the year, weighted towards activities that suit their interests.
· In Key Stage 4 Core PE is reduced to 1 hour per week with the option of studying an additional 3 hours per week for a BTEC 1st Diploma in Sport, with strong vocational links. In Core PE students are allowed to specialise further than in Y9 by choosing extended blocks of individual activities that they like, including Sports Leadership and a variety of activities at local sports clubs. They are also encouraged to work towards a Short Course GCSE.
Opportunities
· For every area of activity offered within the curriculum there are opportunities for students to develop further through our extra-curricular (hyperlink to timetables) and club links programme (hyperlink to club directory). Expert coaches are often brought in to assist in this.
· The City School are proud to complete a higher proportion of their timetabled fixtures each year that any other school in Sheffield.
· We hold an annual sports celebration eveing called Player of the Year Awards, which is run on a similar format top the BBC Sports Personality event.
· Students are given wide-ranging opportunities to experience physical activities at local community clubs from Y9 onwards.
· We are part of the Forge Sports Partnership (hyperlink to Forge website) based at Handsworth Grange Sports College.
· We also have quality assured links with a wide range of local clubs (hyperlink to Club Links Directory)
Facilities and Technology
· We have a large sports hall, traditional gym, 3 dance spaces which we share with the Arts Department, a table tennis area, tennis courts, extensive playing fields, netball and 5-a-side football courts.
· The school has 6 changing rooms, one for each class on PE at any time.
· We make extensive use of technology and have pioneered the school’s development of the Learning Platform, which is used for sharing resources, setting and receiving homework.
· We have also made excellent use of video analysis technology over the last 10 years and have a license for the Dartfish package often seen on TV.
