My Physical Education

At Mabel Prichard School our Physical Education curriculum aims to provide an inclusive, engaging and supportive structure where every student can develop their physical skills, maintaining independence and maximising access to the world around them. We are committed to fostering a love for physical activity, promoting lifelong health and well-being, and minimising the effects of our learners' individual health/medical needs on their quality of life. 

Due to the range of physical barriers faced by many of our learners, the physical development curriculum promotes aspirational learning for each individual, from the early stages of body awareness through to instilling values, such as teamwork, respect and resilience as foundations for lifelong learning.

Many of our learners (across all pathways) have personalised physiotherapy programmes which are used as the foundation for their physical education.

All learners take part in yoga sessions and play Boccia and specialist sports days such as ‘Sportfest’ and ‘Wimbledon Day’ facilitate opportunities to broaden experiences of different sport related activities and develop an interest. All learners across the school take part in the Penathlon, an inclusive inter-school sports competition offering students the opportunity to compete in a range of inclusive sports. 

The pre-formal pathway, focuses on body awareness, with activities to develop a sense of self, autonomy and agency in the world around them. This is through the development of fine and gross motor skills, movement and use of different equipment and environments, e.g swimming pools, trampolines and specialist physio equipment. Team games such as Boccia and table cricket are also taught to facilitate joint attention and communication

Our informal pathway focuses on developing the physical and social skills needed to support independent access to the world. This is through fine and gross motor skill development, turn taking, joint attention development and the development of communication skills. Learners work on the early stages of developing skills for more formal games, such as paying attention to balls, throwing, catching, and passing. 

For learners on our semi-formal and formal pathways, a more traditional PE curriculum is used to help learners develop a love of physical activity, and a knowledge of skills and rules. Learners follow the rules of games such as football, cricket and Boccia and compete with peers both in and out of school.