At Mayfield School, we believe that having opportunities for Physical Development within our curriculum is essential for developing and maintaining good lifelong health and fitness. We want to maximise the opportunities for functional fine and gross movement, throughout each day. This is important for all our pupils but is especially important for those children and young people who experience significant mobility problems and associated health complications.
We want our pupils to have the skills to keep themselves physically safe and healthy both within school and in the wider community. We want our pupils to become physically confident in a way that supports their health and fitness through childhood and into adulthood.
We recognise that through sports and the underpinning values and disciplines that PE promotes, we can teach interpersonal skills such as fairness, being part of a team, cooperation and collaboration.
Due to the diverse range of physical strengths and needs of our pupils the opportunities, activities and lessons offered to our pupils are broad. Our pupils with severe mobility issues have access to a bespoke suite of programmes designed with input from community physiotherapist and occupational health teams. Our school staff follow guidance from the therapists to ensure the health and mobility of our pupils is maximised. Mayfield School is a nationally recognised MOVE Regional Centre of Excellence and all pupils on the MOVE programme have an individual plan and set of targets. We also offer Rebound Therapy on our trampoline and again pupils accessing this programme have a specific plan and targeted outcomes to aim for.
Our PE curriculum is implemented through Equal units My Physical Wellbeing and My Play and Leisure which covers topics such as healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, mental health and wellbeing, PE, Games, sports and Aquatics and Physical Activities. All pupils receive at least one lesson of PE per week and this is often supplemented with addition physical activities. Outdoor play and exploration is encouraged daily, with many primary classrooms having their own playgrounds and the secondary pupils having access to our vast outdoor area, which boasts an outdoor gym, play park and Multi-use Games area. It also includes the Mayfield Mile, which aims to encourage pupils to walk or move along a mile each day. We have good links with local external sports coaching and in the past we have welcomed wheelchair basketball coaches, rugby coaching, dance teachers and football coaches from the community.
As a school, we are extremely lucky to have a hydrotherapy pool on site and it plays a huge role in implementing the physical development curriculum. All primary aged pupils have at least one swimming lesson per week with our pupils with more physical mobility issues accessing the Halliwick programme. Our secondary aged pupils access swimming lessons on a termly rota as part of their PE curriculum. Individual pupils also access the pool to work on more personalised targets, which may include weight management plans, regulation of sensory and behavioural issues and confidence building plans.
Our school engages in community and inter-school sports events and competitions and have competed nationally in Boccia and locally have represented Copeland in table tennis, table cricket, football and Boccia. We have had great success in the past and although winning a trophy is very nice, it is more important to us that our pupils feel proud to represent Mayfield and be part of the team.
The intended impact of teaching Physical Development at Mayfield School is to embed a lifelong desire to be physically active and healthy and improve the wellbeing and fitness of our pupils. Our pupils will be appropriately physically challenged in order to become more physically confident and maintain good general health and fitness. We want our pupils to develop the independence to take responsibility for their own health and to participate in their own fitness into adulthood.
Opportunities given in school, to take part in competitive sports and activities, will develop values such as fairness and team working and hopefully help our pupils to utilise these skills in their wider lives.