PE and School Sport premium for primary schools
On the 8th March 2023 the Government announced a 2 year extension to the PE and Sport Premium funding, including additional funding for SGOs for 2 years and the announcement that schools will be required to deliver a minimum of 2 hours PE per week
On the 18th July 2023 the Government unveiled the updated School Sport and Physical Activity Action Plan, along with refreshed guidance on the Premium (including the new website reporting tool)
The funding is a ring-fenced grant for English primary schools to provide additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PE, sport and physical activity. Allocations to schools are determined by a formula based on pupil numbers. The average one form entry primary school will receive roughly £18,000 for the academic year 2023-24.
In addition, £11 million will also support the continuation of the School Games programme to give particularly passionate and talented young people the opportunity to participate in competitive sport.
The PE and sport premium and School Games programme support the government’s commitment to ensuring children and young people have access to at least 60 minutes, or 20 minutes for children with a disability, of physical activity a day.
How to use the PE and sport premium
Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the PE, sport and physical activity they provide.
This means that you must use the PE and sport premium to:
- build capacity and capability within the school to ensure that improvements made now are sustainable and will benefit pupils joining the school in future years
- develop or add to the PE, sport and physical activity that your school provides
Sustainable improvement
Making sustainable improvements should be considered as a priority. This is often achieved through developing and investing in the knowledge and skills of the teaching staff and other school staff who may have involvement in supporting a lasting change to the school’s approach to physical activity, curriculum PE or provision of school sport.
What does that mean for you?
There are five key indicators that must be used by schools to both inform their planning, and evidence the impact of their investment. Please note that these have been revised significantly in 2022, and schools are encouraged to prioritise professional development for staff, mentoring, appropriate training and resources to enable more effective PE and sport for all pupils and the embedding of physical activity across your school
The existing guidelines regarding the use of the PE and sport premium continue to apply.
Schools should invest the premium to have an indicator against one or more of five key indicators
Key indicator 1: Increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
Key indicator 2: Engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity
Key indicator 3: The profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole school improvement
Key indicator 4: Broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to all pupils
Key indicator 5: Increased participation in competitive sport
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 School Sport and Activity Action Plan set out government’s commitment to ensuring that children and young people have access to at least 60 minutes of sport and physical activity per day, with a recommendation of 30 minutes of this delivered during the school day (in line with the Chief Medical Officer guidelines which recommend an average of at least 60 minutes per day across the week).
The PE and Sport Premium can help primary schools to achieve this aim, providing primary schools with £320m of government funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the PE, physical activity and sport offered through their core budgets. It is allocated directly to schools so they have the flexibility to use it in the way that works best for their pupils.
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.
The premium must be spent by schools on making additional and sustainable improvements to the provision of PE and sport for the benefit of all pupils to encourage the development of healthy, active lifestyles.
The Secretary of State does not consider the following expenditure as falling within the scope of additional or sustainable improvement:
- employing coaches or specialist teachers to replace or displace teachers, or cover planning preparation and assessment (PPA) arrangements
- teaching the minimum requirements of your existing PE curriculum
- fund capital expenditure
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 2024 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
Anecdotally there are many examples of good practice in Cambridgeshire, and we have seen schools;
- provide existing staff with training or resources to raise standards of teaching and learning in PE and sport
- introduce new activities or sports to increase participation levels
- support and involve the least active children by running or extending dedicated clubs and activities
- provide intervention opportunities for young people through activities such as top-up swimming, sensory spaces and multi-skills clubs
- increase pupils’ participation in intra and inter school competitions
- hire qualified sports coaches to work alongside teachers
- run sports activities with other schools.
