What is the Sports Premium?
The Government is providing funding to provide 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 Head teachers 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 and spending is subject to OFSTED scrutiny during school inspections. Information on how the Sport Premium is spent has to be documented on the school’s website.
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. When planning how to spend the Sports Premium, schools must consider the five key areas of focus:
- 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.
According to national guidance, 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.
How we are spending the Sports Funding and who will benefit?
The Governors agree that the money must be used so that: all children benefit regardless of sporting ability; that the most able children are given the opportunity to compete in advanced tournaments; that staff have access to training opportunities and continued professional development and that resourcing needs of sport and P.E are best met.
For the 2020 / 2021 year, we are looking ahead to ensuring our school has long lasting resources available to teachers to teach high quality, varied P.E as well as providing resources to provide the children with outdoor opportunities for physical activity given the current climate with Covid-19. When time and government guidance allows for specialist teachers to come into school, staff CPD will be a key priority for Sports Premium expenditure to ensure long lasting experitse amongst our staff members.
Below were the main targets across school for P.E and Sport for 2019/20 from the P.E subject action plan which informed the Sports Premium expenditure for 2019 / 2020:
- Develop participation in inter-school and inter-class competition opportunities.
- Assessment and evidencing whole school impact of P.E and Sport Premium.
- Develop the engagement of children and variety of activities taught in P.E through further resourcing.
Given the nature of the 2019 / 2020 academic year, the full amount of our Sports Premium was not spent and therefore a large amount was carried over to be spent in the 2020 / 2021 academic year. Below is a table of Sports Premium expenditure for 2019 / 2020 outlining how we have addressed school P.E and Sport needs:
