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Key Stage 1 PE

Girls in dance class
What will your child learn in Key Stage 1 PE lessons? We take a look at physical education and how you can help your child get ahead at home.

The main emphasis at Key Stage 1 PE is on the physical development of basic motor skills. Children learn to control objects, apparatus and themselves physically in a variety of situations. They experience progressively more difficult tasks and attempt an increasing range of activities.

Your child will have opportunities to create, refine and perform travelling movements, rotation and balances on gymnastics apparatus. Gymnastics and dance allow possibilities for children to express themselves creatively, too. Your child will also develop key skills, such as throwing and catching which provide numerous opportunities to practise important motor skills – handy for basketball, cricket and netball later on.

Lesson examples

Here are the kinds of things your child might get up to in PE:

  • Year 1 children race against each other and their own best time to move bean bags from one hoop to another in an efficient, coordinated and controlled way.
     
  • At the end of a games activity a teacher might ask her Year 2 class questions about how their bodies respond to exercise and why it might be important to them. They make a connection between exercise and their hearts beating faster, their lungs needing more air and feeling more energised afterwards.

Help your child at home

  • Walk to and from school and whenever else you can.
     
  • Provide opportunity for active play with friends outside of school.
     
  • Encourage your child to take up a sport or structured exercise hobby.
     
  • Encourage moderately intensive activity for at least one hour every day (for example, four 15-minute periods) such as brisk walking, dance, games, swimming, cycling, or active play.
     
  • Encourage activities that enhance and maintain muscular strength, flexibility and bone health at least twice a week, such as climbing, skipping, jumping or gymnastics.
     
  • Teach your child to be aware of health risks, such as smoking, drinking and stress.
     
  • Daily, offer your child five fruit and vegetables in a variety of types and colours.
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