A guide to

Introduction

Physical education is a vital part of a balanced school curriculum. Regular exercise improves both physical and mental health and there is growing evidence that it also improves academic performance across the curriculum. Establishing good patterns of exercise in primary schools also provides learners with the foundation of an active and healthy lifestyle.

Cambridge Primary Physical Education learners:

• develop their movement competence and confidence, linking movement skills together with increasing control, fluency and variety
• progress their knowledge and understanding of movement through the learning of movement concepts, rules, tactics/strategies and compositional ideas
• enhance their creativity and innovation in addressing movement challenges by varying elements to help build and extend their movement vocabulary
• participate and perform as individuals and group members in respectful and responsible ways, engaging appropriately and safely in team/group work and fulfilling associated expectations and roles
• develop their knowledge and understanding of how physical education can contribute to a healthy and active lifestyle
• develop transferable skills promoting physical, cognitive and social development, becoming independent, critical and reflective movers and thinkers.

Teaching Cambridge Primary Physical Education

We provide a wide range of practical resources, detailed guidance, innovative training and professional development so that you can give your learners the best possible experience of Cambridge Primary Physical Education.

We believe that for teaching and learning to be effective, there should be alignment between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. We have designed Cambridge Primary Physical Education around this principle:

Pedagogy

The Curriculum Framework gives you a list of learning objectives for each block of three stages (Stages 1 to 3 and Stages 4 to 6). Our support materials then give you guidance on:

• the order in which to teach the objectives
• ways of grouping them
• how to split the objectives into smaller steps, and how to differentiate to make the work easier or harder
• suitable activities through which to teach
• ideas for active learning.

Our support materials include:

• Progression Grids
• Schemes of Work
• Teacher Guide
• Training

Find and access these support materials, on the Physical Education (0069) page of the Cambridge Primary support site. You can find more general information about these support materials on the About Cambridge Primary page of the Cambridge Primary support site.

Cambridge Primary Physical Education should be taught through a broad range of movement tasks, challenges and physical activities. This includes activities in expressive/artistic, health-based, athletic and adventurous contexts appropriate for each stage. This variety supports learners’ physical growth. It helps them to develop movement skills throughout the primary stages, where new patterns of movement are continually replacing old ones.

Young learners first begin to develop basic movement skills (also known as fundamental movement skills). These include balancing, running, jumping, catching, throwing, hopping, galloping, skipping, leaping and kicking, and form the basis of more advanced movements. As learners progress, they can combine these in different ways. Eventually they will be able to complete complex activity-specific skills (for example, hitting a moving ball, performing a forward roll, throwing a javelin). Through movement, learners will also develop their coordination, flexibility, speed, stamina and strength.

The learning objectives in the six strands of the Curriculum Framework support a multi-stage approach to teaching and learning. The learning objectives are repeated across three stages to accommodate the physical, cognitive and social differences between learners. The learning objectives span Stages 1 to 3 and Stages 4 to 6, for example:

Stages 1, 2, and 3

123MW.03 Move with control and coordination, using space in different ways and moving with different speeds and dynamics.

Stages 4, 5 and 6

456MW.03 Display movement skills that demonstrate increasing control, fluency and variety.

Look in the Scheme of Work for the stage you will be teaching and identify an activity that shows an approach to teaching the relevant learning objective given above.

Think about how you will deliver the activity in your classroom with your learners.

• How can you adapt the activity to build on what your learners already know or have covered?  
• How can you adapt the activity to your own context? (e.g. resources available, culture, local requirements)?
• What language support might your learners need?  
• What opportunities are there for cross-curricular links with other subjects?  
• What else might you include to ensure your learners meet the learning objective for this activity? 

Use the Schemes of Work as a starting point for your planning and adapt them to suit the requirements of your school and the needs of your learners. They suggest the types of activities you might use, and the intended depth and breadth of each multi-stage learning objective. These activities may not fill all of the teaching time so you may choose to use other activities with a similar level of difficulty.

When planning physical education activities, it is important to remember that, before puberty, boys and girls are capable of the same physical achievements. Any differences in the basic movement skills of young girls and boys are due to sociocultural factors rather than physiological differences.

It is very important that primary learners do not play adult games with large numbers of players (for example, 11-a-side football). Such games are inappropriate because learners’ levels of physical competence and their understanding of the principles of each game are not sufficiently developed. Age-appropriate games will enable learners to participate more, helping with skills development and motivation, and increasing physical activity levels.

For more information on the approaches to teaching and learning in Cambridge Primary Physical Education, refer to Section 3.4 of the Teacher Guide.