Click here for the Department of Education link to the Primary School’s Sports Funding page.
What is the Sports Premium?
The Government is providing funding of £150 million per annum for academic years 2013/14 and 2014/15 to provide new, substantial primary school sport funding’. This funding is being jointly provided by the Departments for Education, Health and Culture, Media and Sport, and will see money going directly to primary school headteachers to spend on improving the quality of sport and PE for all their children.
The sport funding can only be spent on sport and PE provision in schools.
Purpose of Funding
Schools will have to spend the sport funding on improving their provision of PE and sport, but they will have the freedom to choose how they do this.
Possible uses for the funding include:
- Hiring specialist PE teachers or qualified sports coaches to work alongside primary teachers when teaching PE
- New or additional Change4Life sport clubs
- Paying for professional development opportunities in PE/sport
- Providing cover to release primary teachers for professional development in PE/sport
- Running sport competitions, or increasing participation in the school games
- Buying quality assured professional development modules or materials for PE/sport
Providing places for pupils on after school sport clubs and holiday clubs
Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of physical education (PE), physical activity and sport you offer.
This means that you should use the premium to:
- develop or add to the PE, physical activity and sport activities that your school already offers
- build capacity and capability within the school to ensure that improvements made now will benefit pupils joining the school in future years
Schools can use the premium to secure improvements in the following indicators:
- the engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity – the Chief Medical Officer guidelines recommend that all children and young people aged 5 to 18 engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day, of which 30 minutes should be in school
- the profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement
- increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
- broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to all pupils
- increased participation in competitive sport
For example, you can use your funding to:
- provide staff with professional development, mentoring, training and resources to help them teach PE and sport more effectively and embed physical activity across your school
- hire qualified sports coaches to work with teachers to enhance or extend current opportunities
- introduce new sports, dance or other activities to encourage more pupils to take up sport and physical activities
- support and involve the least active children by providing targeted activities, and running or extending school sports and holiday clubs
- enter or run more sport competitions
- partner with other schools to run sports activities and clubs
- increase pupils’ participation in the School Games
- encourage pupils to take on leadership or volunteer roles that support sport and physical activity within the school
- raise attainment in primary school swimming to meet requirements of the national curriculum before the end of key stage 2
- embed physical activity into the school day through active travel to and from school, active playgrounds and active teaching