Sport
Sport is for Life
“All children, whatever their circumstances or abilities, should be able to participate in and enjoy Physical Education and Sport.”
This is fostered through a broad curriculum base and a variety of extra-curricular activities to enable the girls to find something they enjoy and would like to continue with after they leave us.
The essence of PE and Sport at St. Mary’s is:
- To involve all girls in physical activity in order to develop a knowledge and understanding of a range of sports;
- To create an environment where the girls will enjoy participation in physical activity and so foster a desire for activity as leisure;
- To assist girls in the development and maintenance of a satisfactory level of personal fitness
Key Stages 2 and 3
Through a variety of physical activities, such as Netball, Hockey, Basketball, Volleyball, Badminton, Tennis and Rounders, the girls try to develop their existing skills and begin to link skills, techniques, tactics and ideas within the game.
They will also learn to work with precision, control and fluency within individual activities such as Dance, Gymnastics, synchronised swimming and Athletics.
Whilst participating in activities, girls will learn to observe and comment on their own and others work and begin to draw from their existing knowledge to suggest ways to improve their or others' performances.
Through the two key stages, the girls are made increasingly aware of the importance of preparing for, and recovering from, activities and how different types of exercise can contribute to their personal health and fitness.
Activities in Years 5, 6, 7 and 8:
Hockey
Gymnastics
Netball
Dance
Tennis
Swimming & Waterpolo
Rounders
Short Tennis/Tennis
Athletics
Activities in Yr 9:
Hockey
Volleyball
Netball
Basketball
Badminton
Health Related Fitness
Athletics
Tennis
Swimming & Waterpolo
Rounders
Key Stage 4
During this time the girls will try to refine their existing skills and use the principles of advanced tactics and strategies they have been taught to apply them in response to changing circumstances within a game.
They will also aim to consistently show precision, control and fluency within all skills practised and performed.
During their participation in activities the girls' will try to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the quality of performance of their own or others work and the factors that can affect this, such as fitness, psychological preparation and skill levels. From this they will be able to consider methods to overcome these factors affecting performance.
There will be a greater understanding of the benefits of regular, planned activity on their health and fitness and opportunity for them to create and implement an activity programme to effectively improve their own performance.
GCSE Physical Education is now an option at KS4, which develops an even greater understanding of the factors which affect performance and participation within Sport. We currently have a Yr 10 & Yr 11 group studying GCSE PE. We follow the OCR syllabus
Activities in Years 10 and 11:
Health Related Fitness
Netball
Tennis
Badminton
Athletics
Basketball
Swimming
Volleyball
Aerobics
Rounders
6th Form Games
During these two years, the girls are given a wider selection of physical activities to take part in and the emphasis is to try and ensure the girls enjoy some form of physical activity that they will hopefully continue with once leaving St. Mary's.
There is the opportunity to continue with team sports such as Hockey and Netball, but also there is greater opportunity for choice.
The activities range from Team sports, Badminton, Tennis, Running, Dance Aerobics and 'Fit Ball' work-outs.
We also now have girls studying AS and A2 Physical Education following the AQA syllabus. This allows the girls to focus on their major sport and develop their own level of performance through a greater understanding of all the contributory factors; Psycholgical, Physiological, Historical, Socio-cultural.
