Sports Premium
About the PE and Sport Premium
In March 2013 the government announced that it was to provide funding of £150 million per annum for academic years 2013 to 2014 and 2014 to 2015 to improve provision of physical education and sport in primary schools in England – The Primary PE and Sport Premium. This funding is allocated to primary school headteachers. The funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on provision of PE and sport in schools.
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 sets out the government’s commitment to ensuring that children and young people have access to at least 60 minutes of sport and physical activity per day. It recommends 30 minutes of this is delivered during the school day (in line with the Chief Medical Officers 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 commitment, providing primary schools with £320 million 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.
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, physical activity and sport they provide. This includes any carried forward funding.
This means that schools must use the PE and sport premium to:
- develop or add to the PE, physical activity and sport that your school provides
- 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
Across the Skylark Federation. we use the PE and sport premium to secure improvements in the following 5 key indicators.
Engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity, for example by:
- providing targeted activities or support to involve and encourage the least active children
- encouraging active play during break times and lunchtimes
- establishing, extending or funding attendance of school sports clubs and activities and holiday clubs, or broadening the variety offered
- adopting an active mile initiative
- raising attainment in primary school swimming to meet requirements of the national curriculum before the end of key stage 2 - every child should leave primary school able to swim