Daily physical education is essential to the social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development of each student. The purpose is to enhance this development and increase the skills and knowledge necessary for each student to become physically educated and create life-long habits of wellness. 

Physical education in the lower school emphasizes the introduction and development of locomotor skills, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, cooperative play development, and personal safety while playing. Students are also taught various health topics such as nutrition, the cardiovascular system, the skeletal and muscular system, and personal hygiene. The lower school curriculum is in alignment with the national standards set by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. With the opening of ESD’s new lower school building in 2019,  lower school physical education classes are now held on the same campus as the middle and upper Schools, with classes sharing the facilities with middle school classes and supported by four full-time physical education teachers. Each teacher teaches six to seven 30-minute classes each day, and students participate in PE classes every day.