Physical Education
Physical Education at CAW
At City Academy Whitehawk we place huge importance on the role of physical education, and create as many opportunities as possible for children to become physically literate. Our curriculum covers all areas of PE including gymnastics, dance, games, challenge and swimming. Children are taught these areas of PE from Reception through to Year 6, apart from swimming in which only children in Years 2, 3 and 6 attend the Brighton Swimming Centre for six sessions of swimming learning (in a typical year). Children are taught PE a minimum of two lessons a week, and at least one of these is taught by the school’s full time PE Specialist Teacher. The PE curriculum is based on a skills approach and has been adapted from the ‘Chris Quigley Essentials Milestones’ (2016). Our rationales for how we teach each area of PE have evolved from experience of observing how children at City Academy Whitehawk learn best, and can be viewed by clicking the links below.
We are proud of our PE curriculum here at CAW and place great emphasis on the importance of PE being shared by all staff, pupils and the wider community. This is why as a school we have a full time PE Specialist Teacher, who ensures the School Sports Premium is spent effectively and encourages as many children as possible to be active and participate in sport. We also value the importance of staff’s professional development, so the PE Specialist Teacher works with each class teacher for a whole term each academic year, sharing good practise with them to ensure that all PE teaching and learning across the school is a consistently high quality.
A part of our daily school curriculum is the opportunity for each child to run ‘1K a day’, either during their PE session or as a specific session during the school day. This ‘1K a day’ involves the children having ten minutes to run/skip/jump/dance as many laps as they can, often trying to beat their ‘personal best’. We feel this is the best way to give children the opportunity to work towards their ‘Active 60 minutes’ for each day, alongside their active breaks and lunchtimes.
In a typical year we also provide a wide range of extracurricular sports clubs, either before or after school (many of these are free of charge). The school also participates in a huge range of inter school sport competitions, both with local schools in the area and with the wider Brighton and Hove schools community.
If you have any questions about the PE curriculum at CAW, please call the school office and our PE Specialist Teacher will be happy to talk to you.