Leader: Mr Hall

Our Curriculum

PE is a very important subject at St Mark's and we are thrilled to have been awarded the Gold School Games Award for the past five years.

In KS1 and KS2 children receive two hours of PE a week, made up of two lessons. In the EYFS children receive more than two hours of Physical Development a week, including separate PE lessons. Throughout the year children will learn: gymnastics, games, dance and athletics, taught through a variety of activities such as multi-skills (KS1), netball, volleyball, badminton, hockey, football, rounders, tennis, cricket, tag rugby and lacrosse. Children in KS2 will also take part in outdoor and adventurous activities and have swimming lessons in year 3 and year 5.

We develop our Physical Literacy through implementing the Long Term Athletic Development program; this has been proven to improve performance and increase life long participation. In PE lessons children are not only learning and developing physical skills, they are also developing their social skills. Children are given the chance to lead and create activities, to evaluate their own and others’ performances, including the use of video and photo analysis, to develop sportsmanship, team work and competitiveness and most importantly to understand the health benefits of being physically active.

Through the LTAD model, our KS1 children will learn the ‘FUNdamentals’, through structured and unstructured play. These fundamentals include ABCs (agility, balance and co-ordination), RJT (running, jumping and throwing), and CKs (catching, kicking, striking).  Fundamental skills are pivotal in giving our children the best chance to succeed in a sporting sense, and encourage a love of physical activity from an early age.

With these fundamentals as a base, the early part of KS2 is spent developing these skills in a more competitive environment, whilst also learning sport specific skills that would not be covered by our fundamentals. We also begin to learn rules and scoring systems for these sports/games, and start to think about how we can work best as part of a team.

In the second half of KS2, we continue to build our sport specific skills in match/game situations. We continue to think about teamwork, but look more deeply in to the tactical side of matches/games. Children are encouraged to analyse their own, and their peers, performances, which begins to show a real understanding for the sport in question. This provides an excellent base for children to move on in to secondary school PE.

PE and Sport is very much embedded into the life of St Mark’s School, with our Sports Captains promoting the importance of sportsmanship, exercise and healthy lifestyles. Sports House Points are offered to children for demonstrating the Olympic and Paralympic Values. 

Extra curricular activities

All children are able to take part in clubs that are offered by school staff or external agencies. We offer clubs before and after school most days, as well as some lunch times.

We buy into the Bromley Schools Sports Competition package and enter frequent competitions throughout the year, including football, gymnastics, cross country, athletics, cycling, tennis, netball, hockey, swimming, tag rugby. We have specialist coaches in gymnastics, football, tennis, rugby, cricket, swimming and dance, amongst many other staff qualifications and expertise.

Swimming 

In accordance with guidance from the DfE, we can confirm that from the 2017/2018 academic year, it is now a requirement for schools to publish information relating to swimming on their school website, specifically in relation to the PE and sport premium grant. This includes how many pupils within a school’s Year 6 cohort are meeting the national curriculum requirements to:

• Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres.
• Use a range of strokes effectively.
• Perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

Updated for 2020/2021 academic year

Please note some swimming lessons have been disrupted due to Lockdowns and school closures which affects 2021/2022 data.