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Your updated guide to the PE and Sport Premium

Blog
Matthew Hancock
26 Apr 2021

Last July, the Department for Education confirmed that the £320 million PE and Sport Premium for primary schools, would continue in the 2020-2021 academic year.

The DfE also sanctioned any Primary PE and Sport Premium funding from the previous academic year (2019-2020), that schools were unable to use due to the coronavirus pandemic, could be carried forward to utilise in the current academic year.

For 2020 to 2021, 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.

What is the premium and how does it help?

The Primary PE and Sport Premium is a government-backed funding initiative aimed at helping primary schools across England improve their physical education and sport provisions.

The premium is designed to help children get an active start in life, supporting primary schools to improve the quality of their PE, physical activity/literacy, and sport provision so that pupils experience the benefits of regular exercise. This results in pupils becoming healthier both mentally and physically, to improve behaviour and academic achievement

What are the objectives of the premium?

The Primary PE and Sport Premium is ring-fenced and must only be spent on physical education and sport provision in schools.

The funding aims to achieve improvement in all areas of PE, from the standard of physical education to introducing health focused physical activities and after school sports. The key objectives of the premium are:

Engage pupils in regular physical and healthy activity
Raise the profile of PE and sport across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement
Increase confidence, knowledge, and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
Create a broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to pupils
Increase participation in competitive sports

How could you use the funding?

Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the physical education, physical activity and sport they provide. This includes any carried forward funding from 2019 to 2020, which must be spent by the end of the 2020-2021 academic year.

Focussing on improving physical education and pupil engagement in sport, the premium can be used to:

Develop or add to the physical education activities, and sports that your school provides
Ensure the funding will benefit pupils joining the school in future years by building capacity and capability within the school
Invest in new and updated equipment
Provide staff with professional development, appropriate training, and resources to help teach PE and sport more effectively. Introduce coaching and new sports to make PE more enjoyable.
Run and maintain after school sports clubs
Introduce physical activity throughout the school day

How will the premium affect your pupils?

The premium will have a number of positive effects on pupils such as:

Strengthening peer relationships especially around club and team sports
Improving physical fitness and reducing stress
Making pupils feel valued
Increasing the confidence of children who would normally distance themselves from being actively involved in PE

Enabling and empowering children who would normally not want to be involved in being active and seeing them participate in new and varied activities is key to their physical and educational development.

What to do once you have spent your premium?

Ofsted require schools to publish how they have used their Primary PE and Sport Premium. You are required to report:

The amount of PE and Sport Premium received
A full breakdown of how it has been spent
The impact the school has seen on pupils’ PE, physical activity, and sport participation and attainment
How the improvements will be sustainable in the future

The Association for Physical Education (afPE) in conjunction with the Youth Sports Trust have created a simple to use template to publish the use of the premium to ensure a school’s compliance.

YPO is an extremely proud partner of afPE. We would like to know what your thoughts are on the Primary PE and Sport Premium. Do you think it is proving effective in enhancing PE and activity within schools?

Most importantly, what will you as a school most likely be spending your premium on and what are your biggest challenges in achieving the desired outcomes of the premium programme?

We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch at [email protected]. You can also view our sports range for inspiration and ideas of what your premium could provide your school with.

The Department of Education offer more information about the PE and Sport Premium including how the funding is calculated, conditions of the grant, other ways to spend the funding and the eligibility of schools.

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Author

Matthew Hancock

Assistant Category Buyer for Curriculum

YPO