Physical Education at Higher Failsworth
At Higher Failsworth Primary School, we recognise the vital role of Physical Education (PE) in our pupils’ development. PE equips children with the knowledge, skills, and understanding they need to perform with increasing competence and confidence across a wide range of physical activities. These include dance, invasion games, gymnastics, swimming and water safety, athletics, health-related fitness and outdoor adventurous activities.
PE also promotes an understanding of the body in action, encouraging children to think, select, and apply skills effectively. It fosters positive attitudes towards maintaining a healthy lifestyle and empowers children to make informed choices about physical activity throughout their lives.
Our PE Curriculum Intentions:
- To provide all children with high-quality PE and sporting opportunities that are engaging, accessible, and appropriately challenging.
- To inspire pupils to understand the importance and benefits of a healthy, active lifestyle.
- To support the development of values and transferable life skills, such as fairness, respect, and resilience, while offering opportunities to participate in competitive sports and learn the experience of winning and losing.
- To provide experiences of PE and physical activity in varied environments, including through community links.
- To cultivate a lifelong love of PE and confidence in trying new sports and activities, both within school and in the wider community.
At Higher Failsworth, we use PE Passport to plan and deliver high-quality PE lessons. PE Passport focuses on enhancing children’s skills and performance, deepening their understanding of competition, and supporting their personal and social development. Here, values are valued just as much as competency, ensuring well-rounded growth for all pupils.
You can find more about our PE curriculum here.
How much funding will schools receive?
All schools with 17 or more primary-aged pupils between the ages of 5-11 on roll (January 2021 census) will receive a lump sum of £16,000 plus an additional premium of £10 per pupil. For the academic Year September 2021 to July 2022 the school will receive £19,280 PE and Sport Premium Funding.
How to use the PE and Sport Premium
We must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PE and sport on offer to pupils to encourage the development of healthy, active lifestyles.
You should use the PE and sport premium to secure improvements in the following 5 key indicators.
Engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity, for example by:
- providing targeted activities or support to involve and encourage the least active children
- encouraging active play during break times and lunchtimes
- establishing, extending or funding attendance of school sports clubs and activities and holiday clubs, or broadening the variety offered
- adopting an active mile initiative
- raising attainment in primary school swimming to meet requirements of the national curriculum before the end of key stage 2 – every child should leave primary school able to swim
The profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement, for example by:
- actively encourage pupils to take on leadership or volunteer roles that support the delivery of sport and physical activity within the school (such as ‘sports leader’ or peer-mentoring schemes)
- embedding physical activity into the school day through encouraging active travel to and from school, active break times and holding active lessons and teaching
Increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport, for example by:
- providing staff with professional development, mentoring, appropriate training and resources to help them teach PE and sport more effectively to all pupils, and embed physical activity across your school
- hiring qualified sports coaches and PE specialists to work alongside teachers to enhance or extend current opportunities offered to pupils – teachers should learn from coaches the necessary skills to be able to teach these new sports and physical activities effectively
Broader experience of a range of sports and physical activities offered to all pupils, for example by:
- introducing a new range of sports and physical activities to encourage more pupils to take up sport and physical activities
- partnering with other schools to run sports and physical activities and clubs
- providing more and broadening the variety of extra-curricular physical activities after school in the 3 to 6pm window, delivered by the school or other local sports organisations
Increased participation in competitive sport, for example by:
- increasing and actively encouraging pupils’ participation in the School Games
- organising more sport competitions or tournaments within the school
- coordinating and entering more sport competitions or tournaments across the local area, including those run by sporting organisations
| Meeting National Curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety – 2025 data | Percentages shown out of a cohort of 59 |
| What percentage of your year 6 pupils could swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres when they left your primary school at the end of last academic year? | 85% – 50 pupils |
| What percentage of your year 6 pupils could use a range of strokes effectively (for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke) when they left your primary school at the end of last academic year? | 85% – 50 pupils |
| What percentage of your year 6 pupils could perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations when they left your primary school at the end of last academic year? | 85% – 50 pupils |
| Schools can choose to use the Primary PE and Sport Premium to provide additional provision for swimming but this must be for activity over and above the National curriculum requirements. Have you used it this way? | Yes |
The School Games Mark is a government led awards scheme launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community. Participating in this process allows schools to evaluate their PE provision and assists them in developing an action plan for future progress. Higher Failsworth was awarded the ‘Platinum School Games Mark’ in July 2022 which lasts for two years.
You can read about how we have spent our sports funding in 2024/25 and its impact here.
For a list of the events/competitions we attended in 2024/2025, please click here.
For a current up to date list of the competitions we have attended in 2025/2026.