Physical Education

At Weatherhead High School, Physical Education will develop the student through physical, social and psychological wellbeing.  Skills and attributes will be taught through activities which students will adopt and take with them through their progressive stages of their life to ensure they become a well rounded individual and embrace a healthy active lifestyle. 

With our bespoke and inclusive curriculum students will learn the fundamentals of team building, resilience, communication, respect  and leadership.  They will experience a wide range of sporting activities where they have the opportunity to enjoy, compete and progress not only through lessons but through extra-curricular links, competitive fixtures/events and extended opportunities.  Students are encouraged to join sports clubs outside of school to maximise their skill level and compete with other young people all wanting to achieve the same goal within their chosen field.  This is achieved through displays, twitter and emails to parents and carers.  It is the role of our PE Teachers to enable our students to find their chosen activities by providing  opportunities, but most of all to develop a love and passion for this.

The ultimate aim is for students to engage in their learning and achieve success no matter their starting point to become sporting enthusiasts.  We will promote mass participation with high expectations through a vibrant and enjoyable atmosphere with a broad and balanced curriculum.  We enable a breadth of opportunities from more traditional sports to more popular up and coming activities including rowing, running, cricket and use of external coaches to name a few.  The relationship between student and teacher is paramount and our lessons will be fun and enjoyable.

Our extensive extra-curricular programme will offer progression to train at a higher level with not only our specialist PE staff but by also using external coaches to support competition at regional and national level.  The intention is to provide each child with playing opportunities to increase their skill level and experience sport though different platforms allowing them to extend and stretch their potential.

Students will be stretched and challenged through high quality teaching and learning.  We follow the National Curriculum with coherently planned and sequenced lessons to enable scaffolded learning. Lessons will be inclusive, and progress is to be celebrated using our reward scheme on a daily basis.  Weatherhead thrive from recognising effort and endeavour within the annual Sports Awards Evening which is highly attended and welcomed by staff, students and parents and carers.  We recognise not only attainment but the personal development journey of all students.

As leadership is a fundamental quality to attain we deliver a variety of leadership qualifications through the Sporting Ambassador scheme and Sports Leadership Level 1 and 2 awards. At Key Stage 4 students will have the opportunity to take Physical Education at GCSE encompassing both theoretical and practical elements.   Students can apply all of their KS3 knowledge to encourage the how and why and develop those inquisitive minds.   At KS5 students can then follow a pathway with the BTEC Level 3 Extended Certificate in Sport or A Level Physical Education.  Both prepare learners for a higher stage of learning and into a pathway of coaching, fitness, sports science, health and education in this ever growing Industry.   Weatherhead has a very successful history with students following a career in sport following their Further Education studies. 

Our Physical Education curriculum is designed to ensure progression from Key Stage 2 to encompass a wide range of sports and activities.  The modules are designed to prepare students for KS4 and KS5, in addition to making the curriculum stimulating and exciting to target mass participation and enjoyment. Through trialling new activities, profiling more up and coming sporting activities and using external coaches we have embraced a more modernised curriculum to enable achievement and enjoyment. In addition we provide exciting opportunities to compete at both intra-school and inter-school level. Through a strong partnership with ‘The School Games’, PE ensures are student’s participation in competition at local, regional and national level and learners develop the confidence and understanding in how to compete whilst demonstrating fair play and sportsmanship. 

Schemes of work, resources and equipment have been updated to support quality first teaching and a new Assessment model has been implemented to enable students to make significant progress through their cognitive understanding, levels of respect and resilience in addition to their physical capability.   Modules are studied over five weeks at key stage 3 and half termly at key stage 4; following completion of units students are assessed through our new podium progress model. Checking for understanding, scaffolding and cementing learning is key and feedback is provided to students through a variety of means to enable a better understanding and progression.

Reading materials are used purposefully to facilitate students’ learning.  The implementation of literacy in PE across the curriculum will  increase oracy skills and understanding of current related topics for discussion.  It also enables our students to become more familiar with different use of text and sports specific language.  Remote Learning will continue to be a strength across the key stages and topic learning and understanding will be checked and monitored through formative and summative assessment.   We will ensure stretch and challenge and keep providing a supportive network to our learners.  Communication to all parties is fundamental and remains a strength in the PE department.

Units studied at Level 3 with the BTEC Extended Certificate in Sport have been carefully devised to allow a practical application of learning in addition to enabling students to complete one coursework module and one examination unit per year. With this in mind unit 7 Practical Sport has been introduced to make the course more diverse and provide greater opportunity post 16 and ensure all students gain a qualification at the end of year 12.  With staff commitment to continuing their CPD we have enabled QFT and sourced more up to date and interactive resources, in addition to providing more external support with professionals from the sporting industry supporting interviews and sharing their knowledge.

New activities including rowing and couch to 5km/10km projects will provide opportunities for students to embrace something that they may not have had the chance to experience before and ensure a capital culture for learning. We have also introduced “Challenge Week” at the end of each module. Classes will work together towards a desired goal – for example completing the London Marathon during lesson time as a group.  This is designed to demonstrate our schools ethos of Resilience, Respect, Reach and Reward.

Our Sports Council will allow our students to be involved in more leadership opportunities for our students across all key stages and provide them with a proactive student voice and line of communication between students and  leaders/ambassadors.  Through our newly designed Leadership scheme we hope to encourage more PE Ambassadors across the next year which again will raise confidence amongst our young people.

Sports Day and Interform competitions are another way to celebrate our sporting youngsters.  We see collaboration, resilience and team spirit at its best when students are competing within their form groups against their peers with that overall aim of healthy competition and pride of placing.  These events create a “buzz” across Weatherhead and are very much days which students remember.  We have scheduled more frequent Interform competitions across the year both in and out of curriculum time and ensured we are enabling our sixth form students to engage in healthy competition with external fixtures scheduled across different sports.

We enable personal development of students by competing through both Intra school and Inter-school competitions.  By developing students’ confidence level we progress to regional and national competition and always enter our young people for each progressive stage.  It is fundamental for students to experience the strive to progress and stricter levels of competition.  Success is celebrated throughout school with pictures uploaded after each competitive fixture or event of the team; shared by Year Leaders during assemblies. Reward postcards are frequently sent home to parents and stickers are used in abundance across all age groups.  Most importantly it is recognising the endeavour and overcoming personal barriers that are really highlighted.  We believe in the power of a positive phone-call home, sending a recognition letter as well as awarding trophies and medals.

The Physical Education curriculum/department continues to contribute so positively to our  World Class School.

Students will embrace new challenges in and out of the Physical Education curriculum and will become more confident, able, resilient young people with a clear understanding of everything that underpins our curriculum .  Our students will not only develop their levels of confidence, resilience, respect and communication skills, they will also improve their level of skill and become effective leaders.

Based on the range of activities taught; numbers attending extra-curricular clubs will increase and students will enjoy their learning, and embrace new activities.  There will be a successful and vibrant PE extra-curricular programme with an extensive fixtures and competition timetable across local and regional level across all ages.  Students will reach a higher sporting ability and become role models for younger year groups to aspire to, even returning to Weatherhead at our annual Sports Awards Evening to relay their personal sporting journey.

PE will see more Ambassadors gain their Bronze, Silver and Gold Leadership awards across Key Stage 3 and 4 and develop as confident young people prepared for the future. Combining these qualities, in addition to students embracing their learning, increasing their skill level will also have a positive impact on the number of students choosing GCSE and Further Education courses in Physical Education and Sport. 

PE will be a beacon of outstanding practice for Weatherhead. This will be achieved through the amount of competitions we participate in, across all year groups, the success our sporting teams achieve and the participation of so many in our outstanding extracurricular programme. The PE department will continue to add the ‘colour’ to Weatherhead through our sporting events such as Weatherhead High School – Interform, Elf Run, Race for Life and our annual Sports Day.

The highly dedicated and talented staff will ensure that the Physical Education department will support students to not only realise, but fulfil their potential when studying GCSE, A Level and BTEC qualifications in Physical Education and Sport.

The department will share their passion for sport and their desire to achieve with our students and encourage them to study Physical Education and Sport at University.

Lifelong participation in physical activity is at the very heart of the culture of the Physical Education department and students will be provided with many opportunities to understand the careers/opportunities that are available within the sporting industry.

The Physical Education department looks forward to supporting our talented students on their journey!

• Sports Hall
• Gymnasium
• Astro-turf Pitch
• Four Netball Courts
• Four Tennis Courts
• Large grassed area for Outdoor Education with a built Assault Course
• Fitness Suite
• Changing facilities with individual showers

A wide range of extra-curricular clubs are offered to students of all abilities and they are actively encouraged to attend. A substantial number of students play competitive games within the school in Inter-Form and Rounders tournaments. Others play for the school teams, competing with schools on Wirral and further afield, with notable success nationally in Football, Gym and Trampolining.

Weatherhead’s commitment to and development of competition, school sport and physical education was recognised with the Sainsbury’s School Games Mark, a Government led awards scheme.

Weatherhead’s commitment to the promotion of sport and physical education was once again recognised by the Government led awards scheme, School Games Mark.