Introduction to the subject leader

My name is Mr Mason. I am the Year 6 Jets teacher and P.E. subject leader. I have considerable experience in this role, having been the P.E. lead in two of my previous schools. I have also completed the FA Level One football coaching course. I have played sport competitively quite a lot in the past: as a youngster, I would happily play whatever sports were offered; I represented Hollins High School at football, cricket, badminton, table tennis, basketball and athletics. I also represented the Hyndburn town team at both cricket and football. I went on to play for Accrington Amateurs F.C. for a number of years, usually in centre midfield or as a ball playing centre back.  

Recently, I have greatly enjoyed road cycling. On spring and summer evenings, I can often be found criss-crossing the country lanes of East Lancashire on my road bike. I have also, at one time or another, somehow managed to ride up many of the main Tour De France mountains. I did stop a few times on Alpe D’Huez.  

Largely thanks to my late dad being a Mancunian, I am a Manchester City fan. I last held a season ticket at City during the Stuart Pearce, Sven-Göran Eriksson, and Roberto Mancini eras. I was there, suffering, when Pearce’s team famously failed to score a home goal for 781 minutes of football (227 days!). This has given me an added perspective on City’s recent successes. Now that my own children are older, I am starting to attend games a bit more regularly again. As I write this, I am looking forward to attending the match against Burnley on Wednesday night.

I thoroughly enjoy being the P.E. coordinator at St Paul’s. It is especially rewarding to see such a range of children taking part in our sports clubs. The children also always take great pride and enjoyment from representing their school at team events. It is lovely to be able to share those experiences with them - I am always very proud of their teamwork, enthusiasm, and hard work.

I am very lucky to work alongside our fantastic sports coach, Mr Ashraf, who contributes a great deal to our school and local community.

How we teach P.E. at St Paul's

We use the Lancashire ‘P.E. Passport’ to support us in delivering a full curriculum of engaging, interactive P.E lessons for each year group. Within this framework, we have been able to design our own bespoke scheme of work, which suits the needs of our children, maintains a variety and balance of topics and forms links with other areas of the curriculum whenever possible.

This scheme enables teachers to digitally plan, assess and track children’s progress in P.E. It is based on the well-established and respected Lancashire P.E. scheme, which offers clear, progressive learning objectives, differentiated activities, and videos to model skills and support teaching. It also allows teachers to assess and monitor the progress of each individual child within the curriculum.

Classes at St Paul’s are timetabled two P.E. sessions a week, and they generally take part in two P.E. topics per half term. In EYFS, there is a focus on fundamental movement skills, via a range of engaging, topic-based themes. From Year 1, the children start to progressively develop their skills in games, gymnastics, dance, and athletics. Their skills build up through KS1 and KS2, via a variety of drills, tasks and small-sided games. Children in Year 4 take part in swimming lessons. By upper KS2, children apply their skills in more conventional, larger-sided games.