Using the curriculum builder
Follow the 5 steps where you’ll find simple and tangible tools to help you build your PE curriculum.
What are the 5 steps?
Step 1 – Creating a whole school intent
Step 2 – Year group intent
Step 3 – Planning to meet your intent
Step 4 – Sharing the curriculum plan with staff
Step 5 – Assessment and measuring the impact of the PE curriculum plan
Download the printable PDF workbook, where you will find the PE curriculum builder template which sets out the elements you will need to build your whole school plan.
And a curriculum map to enable you to communicate to colleagues what should be taught when, in the knowledge they will be following a progressive plan which builds through the school.
You’ll also find a useful ‘PE Curriculum Builder’ webinar on our YouTube channel to support your planning: youtube.com/imovesactive
Step 1 – Creating a whole school intent
When planning your PE curriculum, you should be clear on what you want to have achieved for your children when they leave your school, and what the journey looks like.
Developing a simple statement which outlines what you want to achieve helps you articulate to all colleagues and children what to expect.
Here is an example of a statement:
Our children will experience high quality physical education, physical activity and school sport that will inspire them to participate in physical activity for the rest of their lives. We aim to shape our children into healthy, social, and active young people.
• We intend to build the skills, knowledge and confidence of our children for activity and sport.
• We will allow our children to learn about themselves, the importance of a healthy, active lifestyle, self-expression and concepts such as fair play and respect.
• We will develop a range of important cognitive skills, such as decision making and analysis, and social skills such as teamwork and communication.
• We will support our children to develop their character including their resilience, confidence and independence – and knowing how to keep physically and mentally healthy.
Download the printable PDF workbook, where you will find questions to ask yourself to help you to curate your statement.
Step 2 – Year group intent
Once there is a clear intention of what you would like children to experience and learn through PE, this vision should be broken down into smaller steps to make it more achievable.
These smaller steps take the form of an intention for each year group. What do we want children to learn and experience in each year on their ‘whole school’ journey? This will also give clarification to teachers as to why they have been asked to teach certain skills and activities for their class once they receive the curriculum map for PE.
These will form building blocks that allow your intentions to become reality through implementing a progressive curriculum that is bespoke for your children. Knowing the expectations for each age group will help with delivery of lessons and assessment of activities.
Here are the expectations and considerations for PE for each age group:
Ages 4-5
Children will learn how to follow rules, whether instructional or simple rules for a game. They will join in and overcome any apprehension and be supported to do so. Children will start to learn how to perform fundamental movement skills which underpin everything to come in their school life.
Children will learn to move with balance and control at a variety of paces. They should become good at finding space and avoiding objects and other children. They will start to learn how to interact with equipment and be able to perform basic sending skills such as rolling and throwing.
We want children to be excited to ‘play’ in PE and be physically active. Most importantly children should enjoy taking part in PE.
Considerations for planning:
The learning journey will start with a focus on children being able to confidently attempt and eventually master a wide range of fundamental movement skills. These physical skills form the building blocks which children require to access the next stages in their learning.
Being able to successfully perform these physical movement skills will build confidence and desire for the children to take part in activities beyond structured learning, such as playing games at break and lunch times and being willing to take part in more challenging activities both in and out of school.
What are my intentions for PE for 4–5-year-olds? Here is an example:
Children will be introduced to a variety of activities which will be a positive and enjoyable experience. They will start to build their fundamental movement skills and learn how to work in their own safe space. They will be given opportunities to be active throughout the school day as part of classroom activities.
Download the printable PDF workbook to write your intent for ages 4-5.
Ages 5-6
We want children to be able to listen to and follow instructions to basic games. They should also develop their movement skills further, becoming better at running and changing direction. Object control should become better and more controlled with increased accuracy when throwing towards a target.
Children are confident to explore their own ideas and compliment other children on ideas that they like. They should be improving their balance on different body parts and on different surfaces.
Children should be happy to work individually or as a team and understand basic principles of teamwork.
Considerations for planning:
We would like our children to further develop their hand-eye coordination by using a range of different equipment. This will involve a degree of guided learning but also a lot of trial and error so children can see what works for them and find a way to successfully control the objects.
The combination of stabilisation and locomotion will allow the children to build up basic gymnastic sequences with more control and fluency. The development of these combined movement skills can then be transferred into a dance context where children will create actions and movements to music. In hit and run games, children are forced to think more about how they use their object control to successfully hit a moving ball in the desired direction – and furthermore to think about where they should hit the ball to be successful in the game or challenge.
Children will continually strive to improve their own ability and performance. This will mean they will have to show a level of resilience and not give up or become upset if they don’t always improve on their best.
What are my intentions for PE for 5–6-year-olds? Here is an example:
Children will be encouraged to improve their control and coordination and develop their movement skills. They will be given opportunities to be active throughout the school day as part of classroom activities.
Download the printable PDF workbook to write your intent for ages 5-6.
Ages 6-7
Children will be able to listen to and follow instructions to basic games and be getting better at playing and managing small games on their own. Awareness whilst moving around an area will be getting better, in order to avoid opponents. Object control should become better and more controlled allowing children to hit a ball with a bat, with the ball then travelling in the desired direction. Children are confident to explore and create their own ideas and give feedback to other children on what was good and suggestions for improvement.
Children should be more confident to climb, balance and jump from objects in a gymnastics context. Children will further develop hand-eye coordination by using a range of different equipment. This will involve a degree of guided learning but also a lot of trial and error so children can see what works for them and find a way to successfully control the objects.
Considerations for planning:
The combination of stabilisation and locomotion will allow the children to build up basic gymnastic sequences with more control and fluency. The development of these combined movement skills can then be transferred into a dance context where children will create actions and movements to music. In hit and run games, children are forced to think more about how they use their object control to successfully hit a moving ball in the desired direction – and furthermore to think about where they should hit the ball to be successful in the game or challenge.
Children will continually try to improve their own ability and performance. This will mean they will have to show a level of resilience and not give up or become upset if they don’t always improve on their best.
What are my intentions for PE for 6–7-year-olds? Here is an example:
Children will be given many opportunities to develop hand-eye coordination using lots of different pieces of equipment and to follow instructions in simple games. They will be given opportunities to be active throughout the school day as part of classroom activities.
Download the printable PDF workbook to write your intent for ages 6-7.
Ages 7-8
Children are getting introduced to a wider range of games, which now include more specific types such as invasion, net and wall and striking and fielding. They are able to work and communicate in small teams and play an active part in helping their team to participate and succeed. They are more accepting of losing in competitive situations and control their emotions better and learn from the experience.
Children are able to articulate the effects that exercise has on their body, and why those changes occur. They are trying to manage their emotions better with more maturity, and accepting when things don’t go their way.
Considerations for planning:
By this stage in their physical education, children should have gained a wide range of movement skills which can be used in combination to play a wide variety of games. In all these variations, children will have to work out how best to be successful in attacking and defending play and contribute towards their team. The rules of each game should still be simple enough to allow for maximum participation and engagement.
Games should become more complex so that children learn to follow a set of sporting type Rules. Games will remain as small sided as feasibly possible to allow each child to be involved as much as possible. Small-sided games will benefit physical, thinking and social skills as they will have more physical interactions with the equipment of the game, they will have to think about how they can best contribute to their team effort and equally they will have to communicate this with others.
Children should be encouraged to have an intrinsic determination to improve their own best – and strive to always improve.
What are my intentions for PE for 7–8-year-olds? Here is an example:
Children will be given opportunities to play a wide variety of small-sided games and work in small groups to enable them to practise their skills in a broad range of situations. They will be given opportunities to be active throughout the school day as part of classroom activities.
Download the printable PDF workbook to write your intent for ages 7-8.
