Key Stage 2 · ages 7 to 11
Key Stage 2 PE: what your child learns
In Years 3 to 6, children link running, jumping, throwing and catching, play competitive games, perform dances and take on outdoor challenges. Schools choose the sports, for example football, netball, tennis or cricket, and many use athletics and gymnastics to build strength and balance. Children also aim for a personal best, and swimming is required: 25 metres, different strokes and safe self-rescue, taught in Key Stage 1 or 2.
Guides for parents
Key Stage 2 PE
Athletics
How athletics in Years 3 to 6 builds technique, control, strength and balance through running, jumping and throwing, and how children measure their own progress.
Key Stage 2 PE
Dance and movement patterns
How Key Stage 2 children create and perform dances: movement patterns such as unison and canon, linking actions into sequences, with a worked example and ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Flexibility and strength
What flexibility and strength mean in Key Stage 2 PE, how gymnastics and athletics build them, common stretching mistakes, and safe ways to build both at home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Gymnastics
What children in Years 3 to 6 learn in gymnastics: shapes, balances, rolls and jumps, how to link them into sequences, and simple, safe ideas to try at home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Outdoor challenges: individual
What individual outdoor and adventurous challenges involve in Key Stage 2 PE, such as orienteering and trails, how children evaluate their success, and ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Invasion games
What children in Years 3 to 6 learn from invasion games such as football, netball, hockey and basketball: modified games, teamwork, fair play and ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Net and wall games
How children in Years 3 to 6 learn net and wall games such as badminton and tennis: rallying, serving, placing the ball, fair play and simple ideas to try at home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Personal bests in PE
How Key Stage 2 PE teaches children to compare performances with earlier attempts, set targets, track improvement and recognise their own success, with ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Attacking and defending
The basic principles of attacking and defending that children in Years 3 to 6 learn in PE, from using space to marking, and how they judge their own success.
Key Stage 2 PE
Running and jumping
What children in Years 3 to 6 learn about running and jumping in PE: sprinting, pacing, long jump and linking the two, with a worked example and ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Striking and fielding games
What children in Years 3 to 6 learn from cricket and rounders: batting, bowling, fielding, scoring runs and playing fairly, with a worked example and ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Swimming 25 metres
What swimming competently, confidently and proficiently over 25 metres means in Key Stage 2, how schools teach it, common stumbling blocks and how to help at the pool.
Key Stage 2 PE
Swimming strokes
How Key Stage 2 children learn front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke: what each stroke involves, common technique mistakes, a worked example and ways to help.
Key Stage 2 PE
Outdoor challenges: teamwork
How Key Stage 2 children tackle team problem-solving in outdoor and adventurous activities: communication, collaboration, safe risk-taking and ideas to try at home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Throwing and catching
How children in Years 3 to 6 learn to throw and catch in PE: overarm and underarm throws, catching on the move, and linking skills together, with ideas for home.
Key Stage 2 PE
Water safety and self-rescue
What safe self-rescue means in Key Stage 2 swimming: floating, staying calm, cold water shock, calling for help and not going in after a friend, with ideas for home.
Everything in the Key Stage 2 PE curriculum
The National Curriculum topics for Key Stage 2, in the order the National Curriculum lists them.