At St John’s we know that there is a strong link between educational outcomes and the health and wellbeing of pupils. We aim to develop and deliver a ‘whole school approach’ in order to increase physical activity: incorporating curricular learning with the culture, ethos and environment and engagement of the wider school community.

In addition to this, we aim to ensure our staff are suitably skilled and are able to ensure high quality experiences of both physical education and physical activity across the school day. 

At St John’s we value student voice and understand that giving students a voice enhances their ownership of physical activity delivery in order to ensure that activities are appropriately tailored to their needs therefore supporting participation.

WE constantly thrive to create an active environment with good access to, and integration in the school day of open space including our school field, three adventure playgrounds, astro-turfed areas as well as visits that include forests, parks and playgrounds which are positively associated with physical activity levels. Access to a wide range of equipment also supports physical activity among children and young people.

We offer choice and variety – we understand the importance of offering a variety of physical activity opportunities for children to take part in, including free play which can increase participation in physical activity. In addition, a focus on games and fun, as well as the more traditional sports or competitive activities, helps to encourage participation, particularly among inactive pupils.

We embed physical activity in curriculum, teaching and learning – increasing the amount of time spent being physically active during PE and other lessons can improve both physical development, educational outcomes and emotional development with this in mind we now ask our pupils to attend school in their school uniform allowing a full lesson on physical activity.

We promote active travel – active travel can play a key role in contributing to children’s physical activity levels. Mrs Shenton promotes A Stars within school which provides training for pedestrians, scooters and bicycles across school. We promote walking to school and have a safe place for pupils to store mobile phones if walking alone. The school bike shed can be accessed by all pupils.  

We embed monitoring and evaluation – effective evaluation is key to our physical activity interventions. We regularly gain pupil and parental voice, we take regular surveys of physical activity and use this information in our future planning. Pupils are encouraged to self-evaluate and self-improve. Data recorded by class teachers on our school assessment system is regularly reviewed by senior leaders.