PE mission statement

The mission statement and ethos in the Physical Education department mirrors and follows the school gospel values of which some are love, caring, trust, friendship, truth, giving and helping others.  Through the means of physical activity the students are encouraged to display these values in everything they do.  The huge emphasis on sports-person-ship is a great example of how the Physical Education department encourages the children to follow the gospel values with gestures such as three cheers and hand shake at the end of a game whether the team has won, lost or drawn, never arguing with the official and being polite to the other team members.

Extra-curricular opportunities have and continue to be a strength of the Physical Education department.  This gives the children the chance to represent their school and to demonstrate talents they might not necessarily be able to in the classroom.  Although some of our teams are often successful, the department’s priority is to be fully inclusive and to give any child the opportunity to play regardless of their ability.  In this way, more children can feel part of a team and more children can feel proud of representing the school.  The department has recently started offering more extra-curricular activities for non-team players as this was highlighted in a recent survey.  Activities now on offer at different times of the year are golf, table tennis, girls rugby, girls cricket and climbing.

The children have many different leadership opportunities at St Mary’s.  At KS3 they have the opportunity to help with different tournaments.  At KS4 the students have the opportunity to help lead festivals for our feeder primary schools as well as helping out with primary sports days and the Y6 day.

With the considerable autonomy staff have been granted at St Mary’s, the PE department have fully embraced the principles of Professor Carol Dweck on the promotion and enhancement of growth mindset.  This has been implemented through department meeting discussions, department in-house inset, team teaching and observations. This also reflects our ethos and gospel values of giving the students trust to find answers out for themselves, truth to tell them when they have failed and how to deal with it along with helping others to solve problems and expand their understanding.  Following the introduction of growth mindset teaching and learning methods, the PE department have been referring to the work from Professor John Hattie on constructivist methods of teaching to further enhance the students learning opportunities.  Since the introduction of these principles into our teaching, the department are starting to see the development of more resilient, more determined and more independent learners.