At Chestnuts, we believe that Physical Education (P.E.) is essential to the development of the whole child, both for physical health but also for keeping mentally healthy. We encourage all children, from Early Years to Year 6 to maintain a healthy lifestyle, understand the importance of keeping fit and develop a love of sport. We teach them to be safe while exercising and ensure that all children are able to access P.E., improve their knowledge and skills and empower them to feel successful regardless of their starting points.  

Throughout the week, each class has two sessions of P.E.: one taught by their class teacher and the other taught by our specialist P.E. coach. Progressive learning objectives, combined with sympathetic and varied teaching approaches, provide the children with opportunities to learn and try new sports and to develop and improve their physical skills. We understand the importance of the children revisiting prior learning before being introduced to new knowledge and skills. With this in mind, we have designed our curriculum in a way which allows the children to revisit concepts. For example, through the strand of Athletics, in Early Years the children learn to run, jump and throw objects safely. Moving into Key Stage One, the children develop these skills further and learn to perform the movements with greater accuracy. In Key Stage Two, they learn to apply these skills to competitive situations. Developing this knowledge and their skills enables the children to be prepared to access the P.E. curriculum at secondary school.  

Through P.E. lessons, the children are also taught a range of additional skills, such as collaboration, perseverance and sportsmanship. We are incredibly proud of the attitudes of our children and how well they support each other and people on opposing teams when we take part in friendlies, competitive matches or tournaments.  

We also offer a range of extracurricular sports-based activities and encourage all children to participate and have fun should they wish to. These are offered both during lunchtime and after school to a range of different age groups. Some are provided by our staff and others are run by external providers. This ensures that the children are provided with a range of high-quality experiences.