Physical Education and School Sport Premium

About the PE and sport premium

All young people should have the opportunity to live healthy and active lives. A positive experience of sport and physical activity at a young age can build a lifetime habit of participation, and is central to meeting the government’s ambitions for a world-class education system.

Physical activity has numerous benefits for children and young people’s physical health, as well as their mental wellbeing (increasing self-esteem and emotional wellbeing and lowering anxiety and depression), and children who are physically active are happier, more resilient and more trusting of their peers. Ensuring that pupils have access to sufficient daily activity can also have wider benefits for pupils and schools, improving behaviour as well as enhancing academic achievement.

The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend:

• children and young people should take part in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes every day
• disabled children and young people should take part in 20 minutes of physical activity per day

You should aim to provide:

• high-quality PE and sport for at least 2 hours a week
• a wide range of extracurricular sport and competitive opportunities

You must not use this funding for activities within the core curriculum.

Terms on which the premium is allocated to schools

It is a statutory requirement that all schools in receipt of the Primary PE and Sport Premium  have their completed reports live on their school websites by Wednesday 31 July.

Completing the digital expenditure reporting return

You must complete the digital expenditure reporting return at the end of the academic year.

Each qualifying school in a MAT must complete the return.

The return outlines:

• how you have used your PE and sport premium funding
• the impact your spending has had on achieving the aims and objectives of the funding

You will also need to report on the percentage of pupils in your year 6 cohort who met the national curriculum swimming and water safety requirements, to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively – for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Each individual recipient school in a MAT must publish a report on its own website detailing how it has spent its premium. A MAT cannot publish a single document to cover all schools.

Premium funding should be used to achieve at least one of the following:

• Making additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity they provide
• Providing or improving equal access to sport for boys and girls
• Ensuring teachers have relevant skills and knowledge to confidently teach PE in a structured way, prioritising continued professional development and training where needed.

You can read the full guidance, including examples of how to and how not to spend your premium, at PE and sport premium guidance for primary schools - GOV.UK

Cambridgeshire County Council provides a working definition of Capital Funding, so allowing schools to invest the Premium in the spirit in which it is intended. This may help maintained schools develop some clarity over this caveat. Academies and MATs must be guided by their leadership teams.

For academies, capital expenditure is defined in the academies handbook as: “capital assets or funding are those from which an entity expects to derive benefit for more than one year: typically land, buildings, vehicles and information technology. They are usually called fixed assets.”

Small purchases should not be capitalised. Your school or trust should determine an appropriate (de minimis) value, below which transactions should be charged to revenue.

The DfE clearly states that it is not appropriate to use PE and sport premium funding to fund the cost of a specially constructed ‘Daily Mile’ course.

Schools must publish:

Maintained schools, Academies and free schools must publish on their website, information about their use of the premium by the end of the summer term or 31 July 2025 at the latest.

• the amount of premium received
• a full breakdown of how it has been spent (or will be spent)
• what impact the school has seen on pupils’ PE and sport participation and attainment
• how the improvements will be sustainable in the future
• what percentage of pupils within their year 6 cohort for academic year 2019 to 2020 can do each of the following:
• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations
• If selected, schools must also take part in a sampling review to scrutinise their compliance with these conditions. 

Are you website compliant?

Advice on Primary PE & Sport Premium

Schools with 16 or fewer eligible pupils receive £1,000 per pupil; and

Schools with 17 or more eligible pupils receive £16,000 and an additional payment of £10 per pupil

This funding remains ring-fenced and Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PE and sport they offer.

This means that you should use the premium to:

• further develop or add value to the PE and sport activities that your school already offers
• make sustainable improvements now that will benefit current pupils and those joining the school in the future

• Effective ways to spend the PE and sport premium 

  You should focus on making improvements in 5 key areas: 

  1. increase all staff’s confidence, knowledge and skills in teaching PE and sporting activities
  2. increase all pupils’ engagement in regular physical activity and sporting activities
  3. raise the profile of PE and sport across the school, to support whole school improvement
  4. offer a broader and more equal experience of a range of sports and physical activities to all pupils, and ensure equal access to sport for boys and girls
  5. increase participation in competitive sport

  What you cannot use the PE and sport premium for

  • You must not use funding for capital expenditure
  • You must not use the funding to employ coaches or specialist teachers to cover planning preparation and assessment arrangements, and you must not use the funding to pay staff salaries
  • You must not use the funding to teach the minimum requirements of the national curriculum, or the existing PE curriculum for academies. This includes curriculum swimming. This must be funded through core funding.
  • You must spend the PE and sport premium funding in full in the academic year it has been allocated for.
  • You must not use the funding to buy services to deliver or use in following academic years. This includes paying for invoices and subscriptions in advance.
  • Staff PE kit
  
  
  

Gov.uk guidance: PE and Sport Premium for Primary Schools

The PE and sport premium digital reporting tool

From June 2026, all schools must complete the digital reporting form. The digital form outlines how the school has used its PE and sport premium and the impact it has had on achieving the aims and objectives of the funding. The DfE will provide separate guidance to support schools with the completion of the digital form.

The link to the form and supporting guidance will be shared with schools by late June 2026. Schools will still be expected to upload a report detailing how they have spent the PE and sport premium funding allocation, and this can be downloaded as part of the digital reporting process.

Each individual recipient school in a MAT must publish a report on its own website detailing how it has spent its premium. A MAT cannot publish a single document to cover all schools.

Monitoring and Tracking Form available now - Advice on Primary PE and Sport Premium - Association for Physical Education