About Our Subject
The PE department at Oldbury Wells is a forward thinking department that is committed to delivering a curriculum that provides pupils with key knowledge and understanding, but also develops skills and allows students to challenge themselves personally. The PE curriculum at Oldbury Wells School provides a good balance of activities. It is a curriculum that we are very proud to offer. We show no preference to one specific sport over another. All pupils are given the opportunity to find something that they enjoy and can succeed at.
We aim for pupils to become competent in a broad range of activities and provide them with opportunities to engage in competitive sport both in lessons and through extra curricular training and competitions. We offer a full extra curricular programme of activities both at lunchtime and after school. This offers all students the opportunity to be physically active outside of their timetabled PE lessons, with lunchtime practices focussed on enjoyment and recreation and after school clubs looking to develop a more in depth knowledge and understanding of the sport and a higher level of performance.
The facilities that we have allow us to provide these broad opportunities to students:
- A Sports Hall with 4 full sized badminton courts
- A Gym - where table tennis, trampolining and fitness classes take place
- A tarmac area for 4 tennis, 3 netball courts or 2 hockey pitches
- A vast field space for multiple football/rugby pitches, an athletics track, and rounders/softball/cricket pitches
Key Stage 4
At KS4, we offer GCSE PE through the AQA specification and an OCR Level 1/2 Cambridge National in Sports Studies. These courses both run over 2 years.
The OCR covers 3 units over 2 years; in Year 10 we cover a coursework unit with a large practical weighting, Performance and Leadership in Sports Activities. In this unit, students are the performers in one individual and one team sport. They organise their own sports session in a sport, and then review their planning and delivery of that session. We would then begin the 2nd unit – Increasing awareness of Outdoor and Adventurous Activities. This is also an internally assessed unit. This unit would be completed in the first term of Year 11. The third and final unit is an externally assessed examined unit – Contemporary issues in sport. This exam is sat in the Year 11 summer window and looks at topics such as issues affecting participation, values of sport, hosting major events, the role of NGBs and use of technology in sport.
The GCSE PE is taught and assessed using a combination of 2 exams, each of which sat at the end of Year 11 and each constituting 30% of the final grade, a piece of coursework (10%) and practical activities (30%).
In Year 10, students cover topics from Paper 1 - The human body and movement in physical activity and sport (30%). These topics are:
- Applied anatomy and physiology
- Movement analysis
- Physical training
- Use of data
In the summer term of Year 10, pupils will begin work on some topics from Paper 2 - Socio-cultural influences and well-being in physical activity and sport (30%). The topics are:
- Sports psychology
- Socio-cultural influences
- Health, fitness and well-being
- Use of data.
The topics from Paper 2 which are not covered in Year 10 roll over into Year 11.
The NEA (Non Examined Assessment) is comprised of 3 sports (10% each) plus a piece of written coursework (10%).
Both KS4 options prepare students for the pathway into the Level 3 OCR Cambridge Technical in Sport and Physical Activity that we deliver at KS5, which is a course that students have been extremely successful in gaining the highest grades possible since it was introduced 5 years ago.
Key Stage 5
The course is delivered over 2 years with five units covered in total. Two units are assessed via a written exam and the remaining three are coursework units.
In Year 12, we deliver:
- Unit 1 Body Systems and the effects of Physical Activity, which is an exam unit with a 1.5 hour written paper covering the five body systems and how they are affected by physical activity.
- Unit 2 Sports Coaching and Activity Leadership is a coursework based unit, with a coaching and leadership element, where students plan and deliver activity sessions to their peers and to younger students.
- Unit 8 Organisation of Sports Events, where the group work as a team to plan, deliver and review their own sporting event for participants of their own choice.
In Year 13, we deliver the second exam unit first, Unit 3 Sports Organisation and Development, which is assessed in a 1 hour exam. Then complete the course with Unit 18 Practical Skills in Sport and Physical Activities.
