PE and Sport Grant

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School understands and values the importance of physical activity and sport. The school is passionate about allowing all children to develop what will hopefully become a lifelong appreciation of physical activity and sport. The children are encouraged to undertake a range of sports and activities both within the Physical Education (PE) curriculum and also in extra-curricular activities. The Departments for Education, Health and Culture and Media and Sport have allocated ring-fenced funding to support the provision of PE and sport in schools.

In the academic year 2020/21 we received £16880. At St Mary’s we have decided to spend this money in the following way:

• Pooling together a proportion of the funding with other local schools to pay for the West Lancashire Sports Partnership subscription.
• Employment of a PE specialist to deliver an additional session of high quality PE.
• Allocate specific resources for pupils with additional needs in PE.
• Affiliations to leagues and competitions for a range of sports.
• Professional Development of staff to ensure high quality PE curriculum teaching.
• Extension of the current swimming provision to include EYFS and KS1 children.
• Opportunities for whole year groups to experience inter-school competitions.
• Providing extra-curricular activities in a broader range of sports, encouraging all children to be involved.
• Resourcing areas of the curriculum to ensure that all children are able to take a full part in the lessons.

The impact of similar spending in the previous academic year has been:

• Clear Impact on attainment in Swimming.
• 100% of children at end of KS2 could swim 25m.
• Y1 to Y6 pupils had access to at least 2 hours of high quality PE each week.
• SEND pupils made accelerated progress with additional specialist teaching.
• 85% of pupils respond that they “always” enjoy PE (Pupil Survey 2019)

• Pupils with additional needs receive targeted support.
• All children from age 4 to 11 receive a minimum of six hours swimming coaching.
• A fully resourced curriculum allowing all children the opportunity to take a full part in a range of activities during lesson time (including residential).
• Opportunities for a larger number of children to take part in inter-school competitions and festivals.

Within the school day, St Mary’s encourages learning in all aspects of the PE curriculum with two weekly planned lessons covering Gymnastic, Dance, Athletics or Games based activities. Alongside this the children also learn about Outdoor and Adventurous Activities in Key Stage 2 with a trip to a specialist residential centre.

As a school, St Mary’s is proud of the opportunities that are provided through extra-curricular and competitive sport for the children. In the past twelve months the following range of sporting clubs have been on offer to children within the school: Athletics, Cricket, Dance, Football, Rugby, Fencing, Gymnastics, Multi-skills, Netball and Running Club.

The school has competed competitively in the following sports: Athletics, Cricket, Cross Country Running, Football, Swimming, Multi-skills, Netball and Tag Rugby. In 2019 and 2020(partially) junior children also completed the English Schools Athletics Award Scheme at KS2.