Local work taking place thanks to Primary PE and Sport Premium funding
The PE and Sport Premium provides primary schools with £320m of government funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the PE, physical activity and sport offered through their core budgets. It is allocated directly to schools so they have the flexibility to use it in the way that works best for their pupils.
Using local insight, SASSOT proactively coordinate support with national and local partners to help primary schools maximise the impact of Primary PE and Sport Premium.
Locally SASSOT works in partnership with Accelerate Learning to provide high quality practical support, advice and guidance to schools.
Below are just some examples of the fantastic work taking place!
Making rapid improvements to the PE and Sport Provision in school
Subject leader Felicity Gardiner from John Wheeldon Primary School first attended a PE network meeting in July 2016.
At this meeting she felt overwhelmed by what other schools attending were doing and what she wanted to try and achieve for her own school.
She therefore arranged a 1-1 support session with Accelerate Learning to develop an effective action plan and vision. It also gave her the chance to plan out improvements needed and go about making these changes in school.
Impact:
Since then Felicity has followed her action plan to roll out the planned steps to bring about change. She has delegated certain areas to other staff members where appropriate, giving training and resources to support them.
Felicity has led from the front many of the changes herself ensuring the profile remains high, is monitored and that staff have a role model of good practice to see.
The impact and improvements were noted during the school Ofsted inspection.
Sustainability:
Improvements will be both sustained and built upon due to the careful planning, ongoing reviewing and adapting Felicity does as part of her role as subject leader.
Improving Staff Subject Specific Knowledge
Following an audit process that involved lesson observations, a planning scrutiny and completing staff questionnaires on confidence and knowledge in teaching PE, May Bank Infant School identified that there was a need to invest in staff professional development to improve their subject-specific knowledge.
Over the last few years they have bought into the 4-day subject specific support package with specialist PE advisory teachers.
This has meant that the staff have received training from both PE and teaching and learning specialists on how to teach different areas of PE. They have improved their PE subject specific knowledge related to what good practice in the classroom already looks like.
Impact:
The staff have all reported back their now increased confidence to teach PE lessons. All of the lessons have been monitored and were all found to be either good or outstanding. Pupil progress and achievement levels have also increased.
Sustainability:
This has proven to be a very sustainable model of professional development as the teachers have grown in their confidence over the years. They have been able to continue to use their knowledge and expertise in other subject areas and across other activities; their knowledge has been built upon each year.
Westwood First School – Swimming
The need for change to the current system:
Westwood First School identified that pupils were not making sufficient progress against national curriculum attainment levels, despite being a first school that only caters for pupils up to Year 4.
The school liaised with the Middle School on overall provision and how much swimming would be needed to get pupils to recommended
Changes put in place:
Direct liaison with the local leisure centre for changes to current structure. More intensive set of lessons 45 minutes 3 days a week for a minimum of 6 lessons.
Pupils who needed more then had additional lessons. Dropped from 2 classes to 1 class so group sizes were lower and had more teacher support; better quality, less quantity.
At the end of the year, the PE lead surveys pupils and parents about what they’ve done already – they then inform the leisure centre so they can plan from this point.
Impact:
The number of pupils meeting expectations end of Key Stage 2 (even at the end of Year 4) has risen from 60% to 85%. The cost of sessions has reduced meaning the school can allocate funding to enhance other areas.
Sustainability:
As the changes to the structure of how the school sends pupils has been so successful in terms of pupil outcomes and reduction in costs, the model will successfully continue to run as it is.