School of the month
Monkton Park Primary School, Chippenham
Monkton Park Primary School in Chippenham, has recently been included in the Sunday Times list of the top 200 State Primary Schools with their results remaining consistently above national figures. The school encourages children to challenge themselves, which is reflected in their values and regularly celebrates achievements, for example with a ‘work of the week’ award each Friday in assembly.
Up & Under Sports are delighted to be an integral part of the schools Physical Education programme. We currently run our popular Teacher Mentoring programmes for one day a week throughout the school year covering activities such as Invasion Games, Gymnastics, Cricket, Lacrosse and Athletics. During sessions, we have been working with the teachers to help develop their ability to deliver purposeful and progressive PE lessons. As well as improving the knowledge and understanding of the teachers at Monkton Park, a major part of the sessions is based around peer coaching and developing high quality communication skills through sport. During our time working with Monkton Park, we have seen a huge improvement in physical abilities within different sports, but also the confidence of pupils to take an active part in PE whether it be in performing skills or helping others to participate and achieve their goals. Within these sessions pupils are also asked to monitor feedback to each other, noting if positive communication methods are being used, creating a positive working environment within PE lessons which is then reflected throughout the school. We also provide breakfast and after school clubs ranging from Team building games to Tag Rugby, Gymnastics and Cricket.
Jan Douglas, Deputy Head Teacher and PE coordinator at Monkton Park commented “We have worked in partnership with Up & Under Sports for the past 5 years. We have most recently employed them in a mentoring capacity using the governments Sports Premium grant. This has had a fantastic impact on the quality of teaching in our school, with all staff benefiting from bespoke CPD in the form of mentored lessons. We have also been very impressed with the quality of pedagogy in their coaching. The extracurricular clubs have resulted in an improvement in Monkton Park’s performance in festivals with more teams reaching Level 3 in the Sainsbury’s School Games. Without doubt the pupils are benefiting from the high quality coaching and experiences our partnership with Up & Under Sports brings.”
We are very proud of our close working partnership with Monkton Park Primary School and are continually impressed with the improvement to the teaching and learning of Physical Education across all year groups.