Our outdoor gym!

What is sports premium?

Ofsted’s last national report into Physical Education (PE) (February 2014) noted that a major weakness in some primary schools was the lack of specialist subject knowledge among teachers. There was also clear evidence of a lack of pupil’s participation in sports competitions, festivals and extra-curricular sports clubs, including those at lunchtimes. It was found that, even in schools known to have strong practice in PE, there is further need to develop teacher’s knowledge and skills and that these schools should allow children to partake in competitions or sporting activities more frequently.

In order to combat this, the government decided to provide additional funding of £150 million each year from 2013 to improve provision of physical education and sport in primary schools. This funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on provision of PE and sport in school. Each school receives £8000, plus £5 for every child age 5 as recorded in the January Census - for 2015/16 our allocated sum was £8,470. Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PE and sport they offer.

This means that the premium should be used to:

• develop or add to the PE and sport activities that your school already offers
• make improvements now that will benefit pupils joining the school in future years

Great Sampford Community Primary has chosen to invest this funding in the following ways:

Improving Teacher knowledge:

We currently employ two specialist Premier Sport coaches to teach a range of PE lessons from Early Years through to Year 6.

We have a dance and gymnastics teacher who enables the children to plan, create and perform a huge variety of different dance styles and productions. All the children get to perform their dances not only to parents, staff and children at our school but also at local dance festivals and to a wider audience at larger school events such as the annual fete.
We have another coach who delivers a huge range of sporting activities including: tag rugby, gymnastics, football, dodge-ball, cricket, rounders, athletics, basketball, tennis, archery, fencing and multi-skills.

All teachers are required to attend these lessons and team teach alongside the sports coach in order to increase their professional knowledge and confidence when teaching the lessons independently in the future. We do not use our sports teachers to provide staff PPA time.

As a member of the Uttlesford Schools’ Sports’ Partnership we also benefit from a wide range of INSET opportunities organised by our secondary colleagues.

By using the Sports Premium to fund these specialist teachers in school we have seen the participation from all children increase significantly by the wide range of activities they offer and attainment is shown in the progress observed by each class teacher in the assessment of PE on a termly basis. Extra challenge is also offered to those that show great talent in sports and support is offered to those that need to build on their fine and gross motor skills alongside one of our coaches. 

PE Lessons:

Every child has at least two PE lessons a week, all led by a sports coach.  Years 3 and 4 swim at the local pool - these lessons are taught by a qualified swimming teacher.

Through swimming lessons the children are taught to: swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres; use a range of strokes effectively; and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

Developing the range of activities on offer:

At Great Sampford we now offer a growing range of clubs that give every child (from Years 1-6) an opportunity to participate. We offer both lunchtime and after school clubs that encompass traditional sports such as football and rugby as well as activities that the School Council have voted for such as hand ball. The uptake on club participation has increased significantly and for the first time we can offer a sports club to all children from Year 1 to Year 6.

Competitive opportunities:

Competitive opportunities are always hard to offer in the small rural community. In order to try and combat this we use some of our funding to subscribe to the Uttlesford Schools’ Sports’ Partnership (USSP). This gives us access to inter-school competitions run by the school games organiser as well as a range of different  sports festivals. This set-up offers children of all different abilities the opportunity to ‘compete’ against children from a range of different schools and has allowed us to become more inclusive. We can offer a competitive experience for both the most and least able children at our school and from the children in Year1 right through to those in Year 6.

Our children have participated in athletics, rounders, cross country, rugby and cricket 3 tees competitions as well as dance and multi-skills festivals.

Equipment:

We have also used a portion of our funding to buy new equipment to support some non-traditional sports such dodgeball and three tees cricket. We have also introduced new equipment to improve our traditional sports of football, rugby, athletics, tennis and cricket. Our sports leaders who sit on the School Council have also carried out an audit of all of our existing equipment and ordered new sports resources for the playground.

Swimming

Currently our Year 6 cohort have;

90% Can swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres 

90% Can use a range of strokes effectively

90% Can perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

• GOV.UK PE and sport premium for primary schools.