This year, in the second week of term, we had THE CALL! When staff gathered at lunchtime the day of the phone call, prior to our two-day inspection, my head teacher informed me that he had put forward that PE was subject to a DEEP DIVE! This wasn’t entirely unexpected as we’ve been doing a lot of work on PE over the past couple of years and have achieved the afPE Quality Mark, Youth Sport Trust Quality Mark as well as local awards. There was very little online to prepare me for this deep dive, so we have put this blog together to help both new and experienced PE leads with preparation for the Deep Dive into PE.
NB. It is unlikely that your school would have PE selected as a deep dive for you, but your headteacher and SLT will put this subject forward if it has been highlighted as a strength in your school! Don’t be afraid!
These are a small list of questions (I remember) being asked during a deep dive, which consists of a short interview (30 or so minutes) with subject lead, observations of PE going on in school with the PE lead, conversation with a small group of children (PP, SEN, boy/girl mix-for me, these were from lessons being observed) and discussion with teachers who were observed (they were very keen to speak to our NQT!)
Can you describe PE provision in your school?
· Share your long-term plan
· Do you have a long-term vision you could share with the inspector? Use this as a focus tool.
· They didn’t request looking at any sort of action plan. Plans for PE and Spot Premium should be on your school website so the inspectors will have already looked at this prior to your visit.
· For me, when I first took lead of PE in 2017, I created a 2020 vision of outcomes I wanted to achieve by the time funding came out. This was created in collaboration with all stakeholders including staff, children, parents and our governors (see next pages)
What is the progression of skills like in PE?
· Share your long-term plan be prepared to talk about how it was designed (also on the next pages)
· Share your medium-term planning and assessment documents (e.g. PEDPASS) and have examples to explain your discussions.
· Be prepared to discuss how specific skills are built upon over the key stages and year groups
· I personally talked about the design of my curriculum being based upon key skills rather than sport specific. I talked about the skills being built up over the key stages and how we knew children had progressed. Eg- I gave information about invasion games- Y1 children were initially exposed to playground games to develop skills of tactical decision making; Y2 begin to look at sending and receiving during multiskills
units; Y3/4 cover units of work based around throwing and catching games (netball, basketball, handball, tag rugby) in a general sense of the transferable skills; then Y5/6 are exposed to the traditional sports and competition now skills are fully secured.
How do know children have made progress in PE?
· Share your assessment documents- for me, we use PEDPASS so do not use a separate assessment document, I shared a working example of this to show how we identify gaps in the areas of PE
· You could here begin to discuss a unit-specific example such as gymnastics. You could make reference to the year groups you will be observing that afternoon so this could be picked up on.
· You need to have good knowledge of the skills and capabilities of both staff and children within your school in order to be confident when talking about progression- be prepared to say if you have a year group who are below age related expectations, for example in gymnastics and why and state what you intend to do or are doing to address this
What support do you give to members of staff who need a bit extra within PE?
· Things to consider:
o What CPD have all staff received in regards to INSET or staff meetings?
o Have your staff been going out for CPD opportunities and what impact has this had?
o How have you decided what CPD is required?
· If you have audited staff needs and subject knowledge be prepared to share anecdotal evidence of what you have put in place as a result
· For example, each year new staff complete a survey about subject knowledge. Existing staff complete surveys about their curriculum coverages and CPD needs. I used this to plan CPD opportunities. I shared my strategy of training more staff across key stages and using staff to disseminate knowledge from training across their phases. I used PE and Sport Premium to send a member of staff from LKS2 and KS1 on Level 5 PE Specialism. When I introduced any new areas into the curriculum CPD was offered either externally or through support in PPA.
These weren’t asked specifically but came up in our conversation.
What makes your PE curriculum different?
· Do you have new units that your children specifically chose to include?
· Was your curriculum created by the children?
· What events are different? Eg Paralympic activities, parachute games
· We have a health and fitness unit (We called it our Fit Kids Scheme) for each year group that included elements of circuit training, physical fitness and healthy eating.
Levels of physical activity within the school day
· Talk about active learning in the curriculum and give anecdotal evidence of this and its impact upon learning.
· Share information about any initiatives you use in school to promote physical activity, for example:
o We use WOW Travel Tracker and are members of the STARS scheme which encourages and rewards active travel to schools, Phunky Foods, an initiative to deliver healthy eating and lifestyles.
o We also have an active Walking Bus scheme running which is growing in popularity
o We set up an Active Lunchtimes initiative, zoned our playground for both sporting and non-sporting activities, training children in 4/5 to become play leaders and employed a member of staff to lead the active lunchtimes
o We shared information about brain breaks we have during the school day such as Gonoodle dancing, meditation, active mile, Cosmic Yoga and the use of clips from Supermovers etc
o Balancability, Scootability and Bikeability training for various year groups has resulted in more children making healthy lifestyle choices
PE and the WHOLE child
· Try to talk about what impact your curriculum has upon the child.
· Consider what PE can offer your children that other subject areas cannot.
· How does your PE offer link to your school values?
· What are you proud of achieving in your PE offer in recent years?
· Emotional health and wellbeing
· Charity events based upon sport
· Play leaders, sports council
· Mindfulness, relaxation
Links to other subjects
· What links does PE have?
· Have there been any whole school projects that is PE based linking with other subjects?
How does PE bring your community together?
· What sporting events are held over the school year?
· Santa dash, Race for Life, Sport Relief, National School Sports Week, May Day celebrations, Sports Days, sponsored events
· Have you had any athletes in school?
· What club links do you have?
· Do you support other community groups (nursery, brownies, cubs, sea scouts etc)
· Parents spectating events
· Parent workshops in school
Download all the information here – Preparing for an Ofsted Deep dive in PE
