This Vision was written and reviewed by the P.E. Subject Leader along with the children, staff and governors of our school. It sets out our ethos and aims with regard to healthy lifestyles, exercise and curriculum P.E. and outlines the characteristics we aim to instil in each Westgate child.

Healthy and Active Lifestyles

We aim to educate both adults and children in the benefits of healthy living. We will foster a positive attitude towards activity and exercise and provide many and varied opportunities for children to experience and participate in these first-hand.   We hope that this will promote long term healthy, active lifestyle choices. We will build knowledge, improve skills and deepen social wellbeing within a fruitful partnership between home, school and the community.

Competitive and Collaborative Opportunity

Our aim is to nurture confident, resilient and sociable children who strive to achieve their potential through a wealth of competitive and collaborative experiences. We will encourage a positive attitude towards winning and an accepting approach towards losing within a range of sports, activities and settings. This way everyone can celebrate varied skills and success for themselves and others in school. We will provide opportunities for children to work together in teams, understanding the importance of collaboration, trust, creativity and leadership within a group of their peers.

We will provide, ‘opportunities for children to compete in a wide range of sports and other activities in order to build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.’

National Curriculum 2014

Physical Education

We will ensure that ‘pupils develop fundamental movement skills, become increasingly competent and confident and access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and co-ordination, individually and with others.’ As pupils move into KS2 they will ‘continue to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to actions and sequences of movement.’ We will support the children in, ‘developing an understanding of how to improve physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.’

National Curriculum 2014

Through our curriculum P.E. we will offer a wide range of sports and physical activities, through high quality teaching, that will encourage children to enjoy exercise now and throughout their whole life. We will ensure children are physically literate, having mastered fundamental movement and sport skills which allow them to move confidently and with control in a wide range of physical activity situations. 

At Westgate, we would like each and every child to have a healthy mind and a healthy body.

Mrs Hooper

Mrs Hooper has been the PE Subject Leader at Westgate for 18 years! She is a firm believer that everyone can enjoy being physically active, it's just a matter of finding the right sport for them and making sure that children are given the opportunities to develop and refine their fundamental skills. Her favourite sport to play and watch is tennis; she is a member of Ilkley Tennis Club where she plays several times a week, and recently completed the Ilkley Triathlon. 

Mrs Pollhammer

Mrs Pollhammer runs a range of extra-curricular PE & Sports club, and is our specialist PE teacher  who teaches all the classes from Y2 – Y6 on a Wednesday during teachers’ PPA time. Mrs Pollhammer is trained in Netball coaching and is passionate about using her knowledge and skill to to develop our Netball team at Westgate. 

UNIFORM and JEWELLERY in PE

For PE and Sports lessons, children will require the following: 

• House coloured logo PE t-shirt  

• Black PE shorts

• Plain black trainers should be worn for outdoor PE lessons and can be worn for indoor PE  

• School logo grey zip-up hoodie

• Year 4 Girls – a one piece swim suit  

• Year 4 Boys – swimming trunks or above the knee swimming shorts

• Long hair must be tied back for PE and other practical subjects. 

Jewellery in PE

Jewellery, particularly earrings, continues to be a cause of injury in PE and sport. We are following updated guidance (May 2026) from the Association for PE (AfPE) which explains why jewellery presents a foreseeable risk during physical activity, and provides practical advice for managing issues such as newly pierced ears. 

As recommended in the national guidance, at Westgate we:

• require all jewellery to be removed at home on PE and sporting activity days, or otherwise for children to be able to confidently and safely remove earrings themselves before the lesson/activity;

• do not tape earrings, as this does not adequately control the risk;

• recommend that parents wishing to have their child's ears pierced do so at the start of the summer holiday to enable sufficient healing time;

• ensure arrangements apply consistently across lessons, clubs and events, including those delivered by external coaches.

Where earrings cannot be removed, pupils may not be able to take part in certain activities but will be provided with suitable non-physical roles instead.

Please note, we will not accept disclaimers or waivers relating to jewellery injuries.