NEO’s KS3 Physical Education offer, anchored on the National Curriculum Physical Education programme of study, key stage 3 (Department for Education, 2014). Crown copyright, public document.
PE in an online provision is a non-trivial design problem. NEO’s approach honours the NC’s stated aims — competence, fitness, and a healthy active life — without pretending a Google Meet lesson can substitute for a full sports field. The strand is delivered as a hybrid of structured movement, body literacy, and learner-led activity, woven together with the Movement Cornerstone.
Per the Curriculum Rationale v2.0: movement is a fundamental Cornerstone, not a discretionary subject. For learners managing anxiety, sensory difficulties, or the bodily consequences of long disengagement from school, daily movement is therapeutically essential and is built into the timetable rather than relegated to a single weekly slot.
Strands
- Outwitting opponents (games) — adapted for online delivery via video review, tactical analysis, and learner-recorded performance in informal local settings (parks, gardens, leisure centres, school clubs the learner attends out-of-hours)
- Performing at maximum levels (athletics, gymnastics) — recorded movement work; benchmark exercises; gymnastics, dance, and athletics evidence captured via short videos
- Performing accurately and consistently (skill development) — repetitive practice on a single skill across weeks; learner records progress
- Outdoor and adventurous activity — walking, cycling, climbing, water-based activity; OAA evidence captured by family or local club; the goal is exposure and confidence, not certificated qualification at KS3
- Evaluating performance — using video to compare past and current performance; setting goals; understanding how the body adapts to training
- Healthy active lives — the relationship between exercise, diet, sleep, and mood; understanding the nervous system’s role in movement; injury prevention; safe practice
Body literacy — a NEO addition
NEO weaves a body literacy strand through KS3 PE that goes beyond the NC: noticing one’s own breath, heart rate, energy levels, posture, and tension; recognising what kinds of movement help with regulation and what kinds dysregulate; learning to use movement as a self-care tool. This is consistent with the Movement Cornerstone and complements the regulation-oriented framing of the Rest Cornerstone.
For learners with SEMH difficulties, body literacy is often the foundational PE strand — the others build on top of it.
Cornerstone framing
KS3 PE connects most directly to Movement (●●●), Rest (regulation, recovery, the relationship between activity and recovery), Nutrition (fuelling the body), and Connection (team and partner activities, ensemble movement, family activities).
Operational note — safety and supervision
Physical activity at home or in the community needs sensible safeguards. NEO’s model:
- The named practitioner agrees activity goals with the learner and family at the start of each term
- High-risk activities (water, climbing, contact sport) require either a club / supervised setting, or written agreement with the family
- A learner cannot be required to perform on camera in a way that is humiliating or exposing — body image, self-consciousness, and prior PE trauma are taken seriously
- Where a learner has medical limitations on physical activity (heart condition, asthma, hypermobility, eating disorder recovery, etc.), the PE plan is adapted in dialogue with their clinician
Forward to KS4
KS3 PE feeds into either the GCSE PE pathway (AQA, Edexcel, or OCR) for learners with academic-PE ambition, or — more commonly for the EBSNA cohort — into ASDAN’s portfolio-based programmes that recognise physical activity as part of personal development. KS4 PE qualifications are not in NEO’s Year 1 offer.
Source
Department for Education (2014), Physical education programmes of study: key stage 3 — National curriculum in England. Crown copyright; freely usable.