Sport at Polegate

Sport plays a fundamentally important role in the life of our school, and we take pride in our ability to engage and encourage students to participate in a wide range of sports and physical activities. We currently hold a Platinum School Games Sports Mark and a Platinum Plus Quality Start Award.

Polegate School features a swimming pool, a large field, two Multi Use Games Areas (MUGAs), an outdoor gym, a climbing wall, a clamber stack, fitness trails for both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, a spacious indoor hall, and a new play area. We also have a Forest School for active learning and dedicated staff to support these activities!

We offer a variety of before and after school activity clubs, including hockey, football, badminton, gymnastics, dance, netball, rugby, karate, running, and Boxfit. Through our connections with other local schools as part of the Eastbourne Schools PE Association, we are able to participate in an extensive schedule of inter-school sports events throughout the year. Additionally, we organise our own competitive events each year, such as a swimming gala and a sports week that features traditional sports days, along with inter-house competitions in netball, hockey, stoolball, and triathlon. For the past three years, we have hosted an EYFS Sports Festival that has been attended by several local infant schools, with support from our Year 5 and 6 Sports Leaders. New for this year, we also have trained Games Leaders in Key Stage 1 who will initiate activities during playtimes.

Our overarching school values of RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY and READY are reflected in expectations of children as they prepare for and participate in PE activities. We foster this even further through our system of awarding house points which are accumulated throughout the year. Polegate School students in teams, and individually, have a respect for one another, their opponents and referees and feel a pride in their performance. In this sense of pride, of course, they are not alone! We have frequent comments about how well our pupils represent their school.

Above all we hope to increase self-confidence, physical fitness, mental well-being, and a love of being active that will continue to adulthood.

Who knows, we may have sports stars of the future!

We have followed the success of our past pupils. Polegate’s swimmers have gone on to compete at all levels, from county meets to national trials. Some of our past (and present!) footballers have very bright futures with professional clubs. We have encouraged our talented runners to join local clubs and those runners have represented their county. We have links with local hockey clubs, Wildcats girls’ football development programme, local rugby and tennis providers.

How are we spending our funding:

• Buying into the local sports network, to increase participation in inter-school competitive sport and establish links with other primary and secondary schools
• Procuring quality assured professional training for all staff to increase confidence and competence in teaching PE and Sport
• Providing opportunities for individual staff CPD
• Purchasing equipment to provide wide range of physical activities at lunchtimes and playtimes
• ‘Boxfit’ training and equipment, plus skipping ropes so that all children from reception to y6 have their own rope to use in school

Further aims:

• Continue to increase participation throughout the school
• Establish team captains/sports leaders in each house