During your time at St Edmund Arrowsmith you will cover many different sporting activities, giving you a platform to learn ‘basic to advanced’ skills, and learn how to apply them effectively in each activity area. Every year in key stage three, you will cover seven different activities, from six different activity areas: Games, Dance, Gymnastics, Athletics, Fitness and Outdoor Adventurous. Each activity area will have a specific focus depending on which year you are in. Below are the activity areas and a description of the focus for each year group.
Games Activities
Year 7 - The focus of these activities will be ‘Sending and Receiving’. This focus will be delivered in the following activity areas: football, rugby league, netball, hockey, badminton, handball, rounders, cricket and softball. The skills you will learn and apply to competitive situations will be:
- Passing/Throwing/Catching
- Serving/Pitching
- Dribbling/Running with the ball
- Shooting/Scoring/Hitting
- Game play
Year 8 - The focus of these activities will be ‘Beating an opponent’. This focus will be delivered in the following activity areas; football, rugby league, netball, hockey, basketball, badminton handball, rounders, cricket and softball. The skills you will learn and apply to competitive situations will be:
- Dribbling/Running with the ball
- 1vs1, 2vs1, 2vs2 etc.
- Shooting/Scoring/Hitting
- Tackling
- Marking/Losing a marker
- Game play
Year 9 - The focus of these activities will be ‘Attack and Defence’. This focus will be delivered in the following activity areas: football, rugby league, netball, hockey, basketball, volleyball, badminton, handball, rounders, cricket and softball. The skills you will learn and apply to competitive situations will be:
- Systems of play (attack/defence)
- Positioning
- Positional responsibilities
- Support play
- Team marking
- Game play
Dance Activities
As dance is such a creative and diverse activity it is hard to give a specific focus to each year group. The focus of each year group will vary depending on the group that you are in and the teacher you have. When you take part in dance at St Edmund Arrowsmith, you will take part and devise dances with direct influences from many different styles of dance e.g. Contemporary, Commercial, Street dance, Jazz, Modern, Tap, Ballet, Folk etc.
The generic focus areas will be:
- Body Actions
- Movement phrases
- Choreography
- Pair/Group work
- Motif development
- Evaluation
- Health and safety
Gymnastic Activities
As one of our most traditional activities, we are keen for you to experience different styles of gymanstics whilst at St Edmund Arrowsmith. Like dance, you will have generic focus over the three years of key stage three, but the style of gymnastics will vary each year group.
Year 7 - You will take part in ‘artistic’ gymnastics, developing individual, paired and apparatus work.
Year 8 – You will take part in more ‘Sports-Acro’ gymnastics, with a great development of paired and group work.
Year 9 – You will take part in ‘trampolining’, with a focus on individual routine development and evaluation.
The generic focus areas will be:
- Travelling and balancing
- Flight and landing
- Apparatus work
- Paired/Group work
- Sequence/Routine development
- Evaluation
- Health and safety
Athletics Activities
Athletics is a huge part of your PE and sport experience at St Edmund Arrowsmith. It is an activity area which has something for everyone and one you will do very well in during your time with us. You will look at personal performance and look at ways in which to exceed each time you take part, whether that be times or distances. The various athletic events that you will take part in and the focus for each are as follows:
Track events – 100m, 200m, 300m/400m, 800m, 1500m & Relays
- Starts
- Running action
- Pacing
- Sprint finish
- Team strategy
- Baton change over
Jumping events – Long jump, Triple jump & High jump
- Run-up
- Takeoff
- Execution
- Landing
Throwing events – Shot, Javelin & Discus
- Preparation
- Release
- Power
- Body Control
Fitness activities
You will learn about the importance of health related exercise, and how it can improve your overall health. You will look at ways of assessing fitness, target setting, methods of training and principles of training. Each year you will look at your own personal fitness levels and try to find the best and most enjoyable way to improve it. Examples of various training methods you will do are; Circuit, Weight, Aerobics, HIIT, Continuous, Fartlek and Interval.
Outdoor Adventurous activities
You will learn to work as part of a team in order to problem solve. This will develop your skills and qualities of communication, co-operation, teamwork and confidence. You will take part in various activities throughout key stage 3 involving orienteering, trekking and problem solving.
