PE & Swimming

Athletic Excellence

We believe that PE and Sports are an integral part of every child’s education and development. We aim to inspire the next generation by providing a wide range of sporting opportunities that cater for children of all abilities. We feel that all children should have access to quality PE provision, with the intention of increasing the amount of young people taking part in regular sporting activity throughout their lives.

‘Anything is possible; don’t think limits.’ (Usain Bolt)

We are incredibly proud to have been awarded the platinum level School Games award for the third time. We are one of only a small number of schools in Northamptonshire to receive this accolade. This is following on from having held the gold version for 5 consecutive years and our continuing commitment to providing a wide range of competitive opportunities alongside promoting health and well-being, positive sporting values and skills development throughout school.

Physical Education

Nicholas Hawksmoor were one of the first primary schools in the UK to to undertake whole school INSET training that is providing all children with a revolutionary new Physical Education programme.

“The ‘real PE’ programme has been developed to give ALL children the physical literacy, emotional and thinking skills to achieve in PE, Sport and life. It places the learner at the heart of what we do with the ultimate goal of children feeling valued, included, challenged and supported in their learning.” – Create Development

We believe that this is proving to be a sound investment of part of the government’s Sport Premium funding and has allowed all teaching staff the opportunity to receive innovative training that is inclusive for all our children.

School Sports Clubs

We always work hard to provide a wide variety of sports clubs for the children that take place before and after school. These would not be possible without the dedicated staff who give up their own time to provide these for the children. The clubs do change with seasons and are in line with many of the local sporting competitions that are held each year.

Over the course of this year we aim to provide the following:

Football, Netball, Tag Rugby, Hockey, Sportshall Athletics, Dance, Cross Country, Track and Field, Cricket, Rounders, Tennis, Tri Golf, Arrows Archery, Multiskills, Gymnastics and probably a few others too!

For further information please visit the extra-curricular clubs section of our website.

Swimming

We believe swimming is not only a first-class form of exercise but it is also a vital life skill and that is why we ensure that children from Year 2 right through to Year 6 have the opportunity to swim during the academic year. This has had a very positive impact on our swimming abilities as many of our children upon leaving Year 6 are able to swim the National Government requirement of 25 metres, with many able to swim a lot, lot further! For all children, we run the Hawksmoor Rookie Lifeguard scheme which allows the children to learn some alternative water and life saving skills to ensure that everybody, whatever their ability, continue to develop and progress in the pool. Back in 2012, the government released data showing how poor certain areas of the country were for ensuring children were able to swim. We are extremely proud to point out that our area, South Northamptonshire, came out on top for the entire country where 91% were able to swim 25 metres on leaving primary school. We are extremely proud that Nicholas Hawksmoor were a part of this achievement.

2022-23 Swimming Data

• Percentage of Y6 pupils who can swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres. 94%
• Percentage of Y6 pupils who can use a range of strokes effectively. 95%
• Percentage of Y6 pupils who can perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations. 95%

Teaching Survival and Self-Rescue Skills

The Hawksmoor Rookie lifeguard award ensures children are secure in their knowledge and understand the principles of personal survival and self rescue. They put this knowledge into practice by confidently swimming the survival strokes, tread water for a length of time, and maintain floating and ‘HELP’ positions. Other skills are used in comprehensive water activities. These include being able to demonstrate the following rescues: Shout & Signal, Reach and Throw rescues using ropes and a variety of floating objects. Throughout all swimming lessons, whatever their ability the children learn and apply the SAFE code.