At Mount Charles School, we want our pupils to be happier, healthier and stronger as a result of the school PE and wider sporting offer. Through PE and Sport, we aim to inspire and encourage pupils to see exercise as essential to both their physical and mental health. We fully agree with the aims of the national curriculum for physical education to ensure that all pupils:

• develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities;
• are physically active for sustained periods of time;
• engage in competitive sports and activities;
• lead healthy, active lives.

The Mount Charles PE curriculum is closely linked to all the opportunities that we offer pupils to remain physically active during their primary education. Pupils are encouraged to try a wide range of extra-curricular clubs whereby they can exercise, experience new sports for the first time and compete within teams. We are committed to all school and community sport festivals and competitions and place high value on our pupils feeling the sense of pride that comes with representing their school. The Sport Premium Fund is used to support and promote these aims.

At Mount Charles School, we believe that pupils are entitled to a high-quality PE education. Subsequently, it has a high profile in our wider curriculum offer. To achieve this, each year group follows the Val Sabin PE scheme of work. Lesson plans within the scheme are designed to exceed the national curriculum guidelines and are focused on developing physical literacy across the school. It enables teachers to deliver the PE national curriculum effectively through units on Athletics, Dance, Games, Gymnastics and Outdoor & Adventure. The PE curriculum is mapped out across each year group, and key stage. The skills and knowledge that pupils need are developed systematically, with the programme of study for each year group building on previous learning and preparing for subsequent years. This ensures that skills and knowledge are built upon progressively. Lessons are taught so that pupils:

• develop fundamental movement skills;
• improve their agility, balance and coordination;
• engage in competitive and co-operative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations;
• enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other;
• compare their performances with previous ones, recognise their own success and demonstrate improvement to achieve their personal best.

To further encourage this development, we use the Sport Premium Fund. Each year we enrich the curriculum offer by arranging visits from specialist coaches from our local community. In the past year, pupils have had coaches from St Austell Tennis Club, Cornwall Cricket and Cornish Pirates Rugby Club. We have also used this fund to offer specialist activities such as street surfing, archery and fencing. At MCS, we are passionate about ensuring our pupils leave us at the end of KS2 able to swim. We recognise the importance of this life skill being in a county surrounded by water. Therefore, we commit to developing our swimmers beyond the national minimum requirements. We pride ourselves on achieving outstanding results and fostering a life-long enjoyment of swimming and a confidence in water safety knowledge and skills.

To ensure pupils remain active, they participate in two sessions of PE each week. These lessons are well resourced including a comprehensive range of gymnastics equipment that are used in the hall. Teachers are supported by a PE lead teacher and a Sports HLTA; such is the value we place on this area of the curriculum. Mount Charles is proud of its PE and sporting curriculum offer which has been supported by PE specialist teachers who lead PE lessons and sports clubs as well as assist professional development of staff. Pupils have the opportunity to participate in PE at their own level of development, with teachers ensuring that lessons cater for individual needs including those with SEND and disadvantaged pupils. As well as securing and building on a range of skills, pupils develop knowledge of the basic rules of a range of games and can practice this in small sided game situations.

There is an extensive extra-curricular offer at Mount Charles School. Many of the clubs on offer are linked to games and skills taught during PE. Pupils are also entered into inter-school competitions and participate in festivals at which they can practice and develop their skills further. The Sport Premium Fund is used to enable more pupils to attend these events. In addition, opportunities are provided for pupilsto work with external sports coaches. This may be the chance to try a new activity or to build expertise to take into competitions and festivals. Outdoor and adventurous learning is taught using the Val Sabin resources. We cover one unit in each of our KS2 classes. To develop this, we facilitate activity centre visits. These are planned to allow pupils a wide variety of experiences that become progressively more challenging as they move through the school. In Lower KS2, we currently offer Year 3 an activity day with an overnight school stay while Year 4 a 2 day, 1 night residential stay. In Upper KS2 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils enjoy a 3 day, 2 night residential at coastal and moorland activity centres.

In 2022, 84% of Year 6 pupils met the expected standard.

Subject leader monitoring has shown that:

• Pupils enjoy PE and are engaged in lessons
• Pupils are accessing the full PE curriculum through Val Sabin.
• Lessons are planned so that all pupils can access the learning and celebrate success • Pupils talk confidently about their learning in PE.
• Pupils benefit from having enthusiastic PE specialists that offer a wide range of sporting opportunities. This includes a Sports HLTA who is part funded using the Sport Premium
• Staff feel confident to deliver the PE curriculum through Val Sabin.
• In 2021-2022, 76% of our year 6 achieved 25m and were able to self-rescue. 48% were able to swim confidently using a range of strokes and 32% could swim more than 100m confidently.
• In 2021-2022 Mount Charles was represented at 70 sporting fixtures, festivals and competitions
  • 72% of pupils tried at least one Extra Curricular sports club.
  • 64 % disadvantaged pupils tried at least one Extra Curricular sports club.
  • 46% of children attended an Inter School sports festival or competition
  • 32% of disadvantaged pupils attended an Inter School sports festival or competition

Impact of PE is tracked and measured by:

• Termly teacher assessments
• Pupil conferencing
• Parent questionnaires
• Lesson observations
• Extra-curricular participation data on Absolute Education software
• Festival and competition data on Absolute Education software
• Completing and publishing the Sport Premium document
• Quality assuring the school’s PE offer using Sports Mark guidance (School Games Mark) and the Youth Sports Trust Quality Mark assessment tool.

Pupils move on to secondary school having participated in a varied extra-curricular sporting offer including having had the chance to represent the school in inter-school and community sporting events, tournaments and fixtures. Pupils are willing, determined and resilient having acquired the necessary skills to compete against teams and individuals from other schools. As a result, Mount Charles School continues to enjoy sporting success having demonstrated a consistently positive reputation in sports and physical education in both local area and county competitions. Subsequently, Mount Charles is proud to hold silver level ‘School Mark’ status with School Games; a government led award scheme that recognises high quality school PE provision.