Our physical education curriculum inspires all pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport and other physically demanding activities. We provide opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness, builds character and embeds values such as fairness and respect.
If you would like to view related Key Stage 5 courses, please click the links below:
We have built our curriculum on six strands: Practical Performance, Knowledge & Understanding, Coaching, Leadership, Participation and Attitude and Fitness for Life. Through these strands we have built a comprehensive PE curriculum that not only inspires pupils to succeed and excel in practical sport but also develops the athlete as a whole, looking at all aspects of the benefits of an active lifestyle whilst creating young people who are confident, capable and caring.
The start of key stage 3 is our initial opportunity to assess and raise cultural capital within our subject by introducing pupils to traditional sports from our culture and history and integrate the core values associated with them.
Across the three years we offer a broad and diverse range of physical activities to engage and inspire pupils to participate in lifelong physical activity.
The curriculum promotes personal development, skill acquisition, teamwork including leadership and effective communication as well promoting a healthy active balanced lifestyle. All our teaching is underpinned with theoretical knowledge and the opportunity for practical application, but most of all we have developed a curriculum that is challenging and fun.
Click the downloads for more detailed curriculum information.
Physical Education is a core subject which is taken by all pupils with the aims to inspire pupils to succeed and excel in competitive sport, whilst providing opportunities for pupils to become physically confident in a way that supports health and fitness. Here at Comberton Village College we have taken that purpose of study and used it to support the design of our core PE curriculum.
Students will physically exercise, work hard and increase their heart rate to maintain their healthy active lifestyle and provide time out from their exam subjects. They will have an opportunity to improve and develop existing practical skills in addition to leading, coaching and officiating. Perhaps most importantly students will develop life skills such as resilience, responsibility, integrity, communication, influencing others, evaluation, empathy and innovation.
In Key Stage 4 PE, we build on the six stands from KS3 and narrow down to three focus areas: lifelong activity, enjoyment, and employability skills. These focus areas allow students to continue to improve as a participant, but also to prepare them for life after school. The curriculum allows students to gain more detailed knowledge in skills that will help them in later life, such as communication, leadership, teamwork, and organisation, as well as giving ample opportunity to put these skills into practice. The continued involvement of physical activity at Key Stage 4 will positively impact students social, physical, and mental wellbeing.
Key Stage 4 sees the introduction of our “pathways”; a student selected set of activities that follow a theme. The pathways allow for all students to have a sense of ownership of their learning and gives opportunity to both take part in sports they enjoy and try new activities that may not have been experienced before.
With a curriculum that is vast and varied and allows for students to make choices about the activities they partake in, we hope that all will find enjoyment in physical activity. From this enjoyment, students will develop a positive lifelong relationship with exercise.
Students can opt from several different pathways, click the downloads for more detailed curriculum information.
Year 10 Physical Education Framework:
Students have 5 pathway choices that can be made in year 10: active healthy lifestyles, alternative games, adventure, competitive games, and the Leadership Academy.
Active healthy lifestyle is themed around activities that are specific to the improvement of physical fitness. This pathway sees students learn how fitness testing and data can be used as a benchmark for improvement, before looking at a variety of individual and group fitness sessions throughout the year.
Alternative games, looks at sports and activities that are not covered on the Key stage 3 curriculum, such as korfball, tchoukball and volleyball. This pathway aims to give students the opportunity to play sports from around the world and allows for the transference of knowledge and skills, as well as broadening students awareness and enjoyment of a variety of activities.
The adventure pathway, focuses on activities that are based around outdoor adventurous activities (OAA), giving students a new set of skills and opportunity to experience activities such as mountain biking, climbing and woodland activities. Students build confidence and resilience through trying new activities. Within this pathway, students are afforded the opportunity to use a variety of technologies in order to complete activities.
Competitive games is a more traditional pathways that is aimed at students who wish to have a competitive element to the games they play. Each year, this is a popular pathway that allows students to play games like football, basketball and softball. Students will improve communication, respect and teamwork through working with others. Many students who select this pathway, often are selected to present both school and local teams in sporting fixtures.
The leadership academy is an invitational pathway that students must apply to be on before being selected to become a sports leader. This pathway is run as an accreditation course in which students receive a sports leader’s award on completion. Students on the pathway learn how to deliver sporting activities and run events. The sports leaders attend, and lead sports events run by the school throughout the year for our primary feeder schools. This pathway is a hugely popular choice and allows students who attend to greatly increase in leadership, communication, and organisational skills, as well as building confidence at delivering sessions to younger students.
Year 11 Physical Education Framework:
Year 11 sees a continuation of the pathways where students are encouraged to pick a differing pathway to that selected in Year 10, allowing for a variety of activities and skills to be gained.
The only different pathway in Year 11 is ‘Sports acro and games’ replacing the Leadership Academy. ‘Sports Acro and games’ looks at allowing students to return to the skills learnt in KS3 in gymnastics, parkour and ultimate tag, alongside more traditional games to give a rounded pathway for those who choose it.
Students following the performance plus pathway may have session plans to write up or evaluate at home.
We expect students to be exercising and participating in physical activity outside of school to maintain their healthy active lifestyle.
Students will be assessed using our Comberton KS4 Core PE assessment levels. Students are assessed in three strands: Enjoyment, Lifelong Activity and Employability Skills. The levels use the same language as the KS3 assessment lower down the school and the criteria is centred around the vision and purpose of Core PE at Comberton. These levels do not correlate to GCSE at all.
Core PE ensures that students are successful in whatever they chose to do next by:
All students participate in Core PE. Students need to ensure they are well organised for lessons with their PE kit and are actively involved in all activities.
After-school PE clubs run as usual for KS4 students. If students want to participate in more activities and increase their physical activity levels, then we would like to see them attend these clubs. This will also help students to develop the positive habit of exercising outside of Core PE lessons.
GCSE PE and BTEC Sport look at both the practical and theoretical elements of PE. The subject looks at the theoretical concepts behind training, fitness and participating. Students will study anatomy and physiology, the effects of training on the body and diet and nutrition as well as practically developing their skills and understanding in a variety of practical sports.
OCR GCSE in PE J587
Edexcel BTEC Tech Award in Sport
There will be a mixture of theory and practical lessons for both GCSE and BTEC. The theory content is vast for GCSE so there will be a higher ratio of theory lessons.
GCSE consists of 3 components:
BTEC is taught across 3 components:
In GCSE PE you will get homework each week which should last an hour. This could just be one piece of homework but could also be two tasks (one from practical lessons and one from theory lessons).
BTEC Sport will have a series of ongoing assignments which may require work to be completed at home.
GCSE:
60% is theory based, externally assessed through 2 written exams.
Each paper is 1 hour long and has a 30% weighting.
40% is practically based and assessed through a piece of coursework which analyses and evaluates practical performance and a practical assessment in three sports, one which must be a team game and one an individual sport.
BTEC:
60% of the course is internally assessed through coursework activities such as:
40% of the course is assessed through 1 hour and 30 minute exam, taken at the end of Year 11. This is a written exam focusing on fitness testing, training methods and training principles.
The next steps for students could be either:
Students must have a strong interest in PE and sport. They should be playing sport regularly outside of school and represent the school on a regular basis.
Both courses are equivalent to one GCSE grade. Students will opt for ‘Physical Education’. The PE department will then select the most appropriate course for them. To assist this process a pupil’s PE, science and English level will be taken into account, as well as a pupil questionnaire.
There is an after-school catch up session each week for each course, where help can be given with revision, coursework and assignments. Homework can also be done at these sessions. We have revision guides and textbooks that are recommended for purchase when students start the course.
Comberton Village College
West Street, Comberton
Cambridge CB23 7DU
Tel: 01223 262503
Email: thecollege@combertonvc.org
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Comberton Village College is part of The Cam Academy Trust, a company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales with company number 0749 1945.
The registered office is at Comberton Village College, West Street, Comberton, Cambridgeshire, CB23 7DU
