At Mercenfeld we believe Physical Activity and Sport is very important. It has been proven that regular exercise has a big impact on a child’s development in many ways such as gaining social skills, working as part of a team, an increase in self-esteem and improvement in health and fitness.
All children at Mercenfeld receive at least two lessons of PE each week. We have worked hard to ensure our PE meets the current curriculum guidelines; however, we haven’t stopped there. We have added extra activities to ensure all children learn key skills needed whilst still having fun. On top of this we have ensured PE lessons are inclusive for children of all abilities. We have also provided professional development to all staff through external and internal courses to ensure all children are receiving high levels of Physical Education. We push hard to ensure lessons are physically active and are beneficial to the health of the children too.
Mercenfeld’s sporting ethos is that physical activity and sport is available to all pupils at our school. We offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities to ensure children have the opportunity to be physically active outside of school hours too. These activities are sometimes offered free to our pupil premium children to encourage them to be involved in physical activity.
Sporting Competitions
Here at Mercenfeld we also believe competitive sport is really important in school. We pride ourselves on the success that many of our sports teams have and the staff, students and parents are all very supportive in ensuring competitive sport is thriving at our school. We have had recent successes in athletics, football, basketball, dodgeball, hockey and cricket. Children are also encouraged into competitive sport in our Interhouse sports competitions, where children compete to earn points for their houses in many different sports.
Sport Leaders
At Mercenfeld we also run a sports leader scheme for our year 5s and 6s. There are many important responsibilities when being a sports leader; the running of lunchtime sports sessions to all ages in the school, helping to run events Mercenfeld are organising such as sports days and tournaments, delivering school assemblies outlining the importance of physical activity, linking Mercenfeld with local sports clubs to get children active outside of school, help out with the organisation that is involved in running the school sports teams and presenting ideas on how to improve school sport and physical activity at Mercenfeld.
This year we have formed a very close relationship with local professional basketball team, Leicester Riders. We have been lucky to have some of their coaches come into school, as well as taking children to their home court ‘The Morningside Arena’ to both play and watch basketball. We were specially selected by The Riders to appear in a promotional video for their community projects. This video can be seen below and appears on the British Basketball Youtube channel.
School Games Award
We are so proud to also announce that we have achieved the School Games Platinum Award. This award recognises the fantastic things which happen in our school with regards to sport. This includes our PE curriculum, extra-curricular clubs and external competitions.