Year 7

Building Your Foundation

Students begin their physical education journey at Thomas Adams with an exciting and varied programme designed to introduce fundamental skills and concepts across multiple sports. During the autumn term, students develop their understanding of team sports through rugby and netball, learning the basic laws and principles that govern these games. In rugby, students master essential skills including defending as a team, passing accurately, beating defenders, tackling safely, and presenting the ball effectively. These foundational skills build confidence and introduce students to the strategic elements of team play.

Netball provides an excellent complement to rugby, teaching students about court positioning, different types of passes, and both attacking and defending strategies. Students learn the importance of spatial awareness and develop tactical understanding through rebounds and set plays. The spring term expands students’ sporting horizons with football, badminton, and swimming. Football sessions focus on core skills including dribbling, passing, shooting, and marking players, whilst badminton introduces racquet skills, serving techniques, and rally maintenance. Swimming develops water confidence and introduces the three fundamental strokes: front crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke.

The curriculum continues to broaden during the spring term with handball, where students learn basic rules, team formations, tactical awareness, and decision-making skills regarding when to pass, shoot, or dribble. The summer term brings athletics, striking and fielding games, gymnastics, and dance. Athletics develops technique and performance across track and field events whilst emphasising the importance of mindset and fitness. Striking and fielding sports including rounders, cricket, and softball teach batting, throwing, and catching skills alongside tactical play and decision-making abilities.

Gymnastics introduces fundamental skills such as forward rolls, handstands, headstands, and cartwheels, whilst developing individual and partner balancing abilities. Dance sessions allow students to use movement and gesture to communicate emotions and feelings, culminating in performances to live audiences. Throughout the year, students also engage with fitness testing through Health-Related Exercise (HRE), learning why we fitness test and participating in various assessment methods whilst recording their personal results.

Additional activities include volleyball, basketball, problem-solving challenges, multi-skills development, and outwitting opponents strategies. These diverse experiences ensure students develop a comprehensive understanding of different sporting categories including invasion games, net and wall games, and striking and fielding activities.

Year 9

Mastering Your Performance

Year 9 represents a significant step towards advanced physical education, with students developing complex understanding of rules, tactics, and performance analysis across all sporting areas. The autumn term focuses on advanced law knowledge through umpiring opportunities in rugby and netball. Students learn to officiate games effectively whilst developing sophisticated tactical and strategic knowledge to outwit opponents. Peer feedback becomes central to learning, with students analysing performance and suggesting improvements.

Rugby advancement includes complex law application, strategic planning, and leadership development through coaching and feedback roles. Netball similarly develops complex rule understanding through officiating whilst advancing tactical knowledge and peer coaching abilities. The spring term continues this progression through football, badminton, and volleyball, with each sport emphasising advanced rule knowledge, strategic thinking, and peer development.

Football sessions include umpiring responsibilities, advanced tactical knowledge, and strategic planning to overcome opponents. Students develop leadership skills through coaching roles and learn to provide constructive performance feedback. Badminton advances to include singles and doubles rules, serving variations, shot selection for tactical advantage, and comprehensive umpiring skills. Volleyball introduces advanced serving techniques, court positioning, set shots, digging, smashing, and blocking techniques.

Handball progression mirrors other sports with complex rule application through umpiring, advanced tactical development, and strategic planning. The summer term introduces trampolining alongside athletics and traditional summer sports. Trampolining teaches vaulting techniques over boxes including tuck and straddle approaches, headsprings, and handsprings. Students learn safety through spotting techniques and develop aerial awareness through straight, tuck, pike, and straddle jumps, progressing to half and full turns, seat landings, swivel hips, and basic front and back landings.

Athletics continues technique development whilst maintaining emphasis on mindset and fitness. Striking and fielding sports advance through umpiring opportunities and strategic development. Dance maintains emotional expression focus whilst developing peer assessment and feedback skills. Students who have chosen BTEC Sport for Years 10 and 11 receive introduction sessions covering components of fitness and fitness testing, bridging into advanced study.

Additional Year 9 activities include uni hockey, which develops stick handling, dribbling, stopping, attacking, defending, and shooting skills alongside strategic and tactical game knowledge. Sports Education introduces students to different roles within physical education, including coaching, officiating, and leadership positions. Students take responsibility for specific roles and develop teamwork and leadership skills across various sports.

Fitness education advances to include training methods and training principles alongside accuracy and reliability in fitness testing. Students compare personal data to normative tables and begin understanding how to design and implement training programmes.