Sport
Sport plays an important role in life at our academy.
We believe encouraging children to get involved in sport helps them to have a healthy lifestyle, grow strength and resilience in mind and body, and also develops personal skills that bring an advantage off the sports field: social skills; increased confidence; communication skills; respect for others; personal responsibility and effective collaboration.
Our approach at Greenfields Primary School and Nursery is to develop strong fundamental movement and sports skills, so that children are prepared to develop their physical and mental sporting capabilities as they move on to secondary school, and high performance or lifelong sport if they wish.
We are fortunate to have so much outdoor space, right across the school from Nursery, so that everyone has the space they need for physical development and sport:
- the school retains a large playing field for field sports and athletics;
- two large playgrounds with more than enough space for netball, basketball and other hard court sports, and
- challenging climbing equipment in each playground, so our children can enjoy taking part in sports outside.
Children receive two hours of sports teaching each week, and we ensure that a range of sports is available in Key Stages One and Two including:
- - football
- - basketball
- - hockey
- - lacrosse
- - summer athletics
- - boccia and goalball
- - cross country running
- - cricket
- - gymnastics
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, our provision in EYFS is based around children getting off to an Active Start. This is done by learning through free play and PE lessons.
Our free play areas have a variety of pieces of equipment to develop physical literacy including trim trails, climbing frames, balance bikes, peddle scooters and fine and gross motor skill learning equipment.
In PE lessons, our early years practitioners follow a non-sports specific fun games approach through the Horizon Programme. Children are guided through lessons in balance, movement, throwing, catching, dribbling and striking on a termly basis. During these lessons, children are observed and assessed to track physical literacy progress and given awards to feel a sense of pride in the skills that they are learning.
We have a number of sports clubs available including; dodgeball, dance, martial arts (Karate), fencing and football. The majority of these are free and take part on a weekly basis.
In KS1, PE lessons are continued to be taught through fun games and multi-sports based sessions around fundamental movement skills. The skills become progressively more difficult and linked in order to prepare children to be ready to learn fundamental sports skills in KS2.
In KS2, our physical education curriculum in the form of the Horizon Programme evolves to be sports specific. Teachers and coaches observe and assess a variety of key sport-specific skills that make up essential elements for a child to participate in the selected sport. However many of these basics are neglected in children and often left to chance of a child’s personal environment. Our aim is to say no matter what environment our children come from, sporting or non-sporting, we will work on those essential fundamental sports skills to give children an opportunity to participate in and enjoy sports of their choice.
The DRET Sports Team that comprises sports specialists and coaches provide professional development for teachers so that everyone has the skills they need to deliver world-class sports, and specialist coaching for children across the Trust who have demonstrated unique sporting skills and talents.
Outside of school, the wider Trust offers all children at Greenfields a wealth of competitive and experiential sporting activities that include inter-school sports competitions, training with elite and Olympic athletes, specialist coaching and bi-annual large-scale Cup events, in the Summer and Winter, where teams from across the whole Trust meet and compete for the Summer or Winter Cup.
