The £320 million PE and sport premium will continue for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. Individual school allocations will be confirmed in due course.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) update

The below coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance section provides answers to questions that schools and other organisations may have about the PE and sport premium.

1.1 Use of the PE and sport premium to support online delivery and other uses

The existing guidelines regarding the use of the PE and sport premium continue to apply. These guidelines already permit a significant amount of flexibility in how the PE and sport premium can be used.

Any use of the PE and sport premium should continue to support at least one of the key indicators. The restrictions on using the PE and sport premium remain current.

1.2 Online reporting deadline

At present the 31 July 2020 deadline still holds, however we are keeping this position under review.

1.3 Reporting swimming and water safety attainment data

We recognise that schools’ ability to collect swimming and water safety attainment data may have been interrupted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Any data that schools do hold regarding swimming and water safety attainment should be entered into the online report with a note to clarify the proportion of the year group that this relates to and any other limitations of the data. Where no data is held, schools should state this in the online report.

1.4 Flexibility to carry forward any unspent PE and sport premium grant funding

As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the Department for Education has taken steps to relax the ring-fencing arrangements for the PE and sport premium in the 2019 to 2020 academic year to allow any unspent grant to be carried forward into the next academic year (2020 to 2021). Where schools are carrying forward under-spends, their published online report should set out the amount being carried forward and give brief reasons for this under-spend.

Any under-spends carried forward will need to be spent in full by 31 March 2021 and schools should factor this into spending plans for their 2020 to 2021 PE and sport premium allocation. The 2019 to 2020 conditions of grant document has been updated to reflect this exceptional amendment to the ring-fencing of the grant.

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. The PE and Sport Premium survey highlighted the significant impact which PE and Sport has had in many primary schools across England.

Ofsted’s new Inspection Framework, which came into effect from September 2019, gives greater recognition to schools’ work to support the personal development of pupils, such as the opportunities they have to learn about eating healthily and maintaining an active lifestyle. Inspectors will expect to see schools delivering a broad, ambitious education, including opportunities to be active during the school day and through extra-curricular activities. Schools should consider how they use their PE and Sport Premium to support this.

How to use the PE and sport premium

Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of their physical education (PE), physical activity and sport.

This means that you should use the 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 will benefit pupils joining the school in future years

Schools should use the 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 sport 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

Profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement, for example by:

• encouraging pupils to take on leadership or volunteer roles that support sport and physical activity within the school (such as ‘sport leader’ or peer-mentoring schemes)
• embedding physical activity into the school day through active travel to and from school, active break times and active lessons and teaching

Increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport, for example by:

• providing staff with professional development, mentoring, training and resources to help them teach PE and sport more effectively to all pupils, and embed physical activity across your school
• hiring qualified sports coaches to work alongside teachers to enhance or extend current opportunities

Broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to all pupils, for example by:

• introducing new sports and physical activities (such as dance, yoga or fitness sessions) to encourage more pupils to take up sport and physical activities
• partnering with other schools to run sport activities and clubs
• providing more (or broadening the variety of) extra-curricular activities after school in the 3 to 6pm window, delivered by the school or other local sport organisations

Increased participation in competitive sport, for example by:

• increasing pupils’ participation in the School Games
• organising, coordinating or entering more sport competitions or tournaments within the school or across the local area, including those run by sporting organisations.

These Good Practice Examples produced by Active Derbyshire and Active Notts give further suggestions for how your PE and Sport Premium might be used to deliver on the 5 key indicators.

Your local Active Partnership can provide further advice on how best to use your PE and Sport Premium. Active Partnerships coordinate the local availability of PE, school sport and physical activity, and can help schools find the right sport opportunities and facilities. Where appropriate, you could also ask your local School Games Organiser for advice.

The Association for PE has produced a PE and Sport Premium FAQ which may also be helpful in deciding how you wish to use your funding.

Active mile

Where schools choose to take part in an active mile, you should use your existing playgrounds, fields, halls and sports facilities to incorporate an active mile into the school day and develop a lifelong habit of daily physical activity.

Raising attainment in primary school swimming

Swimming is a national curriculum requirement and by the end of key stage 2 pupils are expected to be able to swim confidently and know how to be safe in and around water. The 3 national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety are to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• perform a safe self-rescue in different water based situations
• use a range of strokes effectively

The premium can be used to fund the professional development and training that is available to schools to train staff to support high quality swimming and water safety lessons for their pupils.

The premium may also be used to provide additional top-up swimming lessons to pupils who have not been able to meet the 3 national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety - after the delivery of core swimming and water safety lessons.

Schools are required to publish information on the percentage of their pupils in year 6 who met each of the 3 swimming and water safety national curriculum requirements. Further details are in the online reporting section of this guidance.

Further information on training and resources, including advice on the use of the PE and Sport Premium, is available from Swim England.

What your funding should not be used for

You should not use your funding to:

• employ coaches or specialist teachers to cover planning preparation and assessment (PPA) arrangements – these should come out of your core staffing budgets
• teach the minimum requirements of the national curriculum – with the exception of top-up swimming lessons after pupils’ completion of core lessons (or, in the case of academies and free schools, to teach your existing PE curriculum)
• fund capital expenditure – the Department for Education does not set the capitalisation policy for each school. School business managers, school accountants and their auditors are best placed to advise on a school’s agreed capitalisation policy

Accountability

School compliance

Schools are accountable for their use of the PE and Sport Premium funding allocated to them. Schools are expected to spend the grant for the purpose it was provided only – to make additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity offered. Schools and local authorities must follow the terms and conditions in the conditions of grant documents.

Online reporting

You must publish details of how you spend your PE and sport premium funding by the end of the summer term or by 31 July 2020 at the latest. Online reporting must include:

• the amount of 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

You are also required to publish the percentage of pupils within your year 6 cohort in the 2019 to 2020 academic year who met the national curriculum requirement to:

• 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

Attainment data for year 6 pupils should be provided from their most recent swimming lessons. This may be data from years 3, 4, 5 or 6, depending on the swimming programme at your school. It is therefore essential to retain attainment data from swimming lessons in years 3 to 5 to be able to report this accurately in year 6.

To help you plan, monitor and report on the impact of your spending, partners in the physical education and school sport sector have developed a template. The template can be accessed through the Association for PE and Youth Sport Trust websites. It’s recommended that the template is used to record your activity throughout the year, as well as for publication at the end of the school year.

Review of online reports

Schools’ online reporting is monitored through an annual sample of schools in each local authority. Active Partnerships review the published information on selected schools’ websites to ensure it meets the requirements on premium funding and swimming attainment. The results are reported to the Department for Education, and also help to ensure that Active Partnerships can offer schools in their local area the most relevant support.

Eligibility

Most schools with primary-age pupils receive the PE and sport premium in the academic year 2019 to 2020, including:

• schools maintained by the local authority
• academies and free schools
• special schools (for children with special educational needs or disabilities)
• non-maintained special schools (schools for children with special educational needs that the Secretary of State for Education has approved under section 342 of the Education Act 1996)
• city technology colleges (CTCs)
• pupil referral units (PRUs provide education for children who can’t go to a mainstream school)
• general hospitals

The following types of school do not receive this funding:

• nursery schools
• studio schools
• university technical colleges (UTCs)
• independent schools (except for non-maintained special schools, which do receive the funding)

How we calculate funding

Schools receive PE and sport premium funding based on the number of pupils in years 1 to 6.

In cases where schools don’t follow year groups (for example, in some special schools), pupils aged 5 to 10 attract the funding.

In most cases, we determine how many pupils in your school attract the funding using data from the January 2019 school census.

If you are a new school or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2019 to 2020, we will base your funding on data from the autumn 2019 school census.

Funding for 2019 to 2020

Schools with 16 or fewer eligible pupils receive £1,000 per pupil.

Schools with 17 or more eligible pupils receive £16,000 and an additional payment of £10 per pupil.

You can access the published allocations for 2019 to 2020 and read the conditions of grant for 2019 to 2020.

The breakdown of funding for the academic year 2018 to 2019 is also available.

Payment dates for 2019 to 2020

Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals

Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals, do not receive funding directly from the Department for Education (DfE). We give the funding to your local authority and they pass it on to you.

We give local authorities PE and sport premium funding for maintained schools in 2 separate payments. Local authorities receive:

• 7/12 of your funding allocation on 30 October 2019
• 5/12 of your funding allocation on 30 April 2020

If you are a new maintained school or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2019 to 2020 academic year, local authorities receive:

• 7/12 of your funding allocation on 28 February 2020
• 5/12 of your funding allocation on 30 April 2020

Academies, free schools and CTCs

We send academies, free schools and CTCs their PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. You receive:

• 7/12 of your funding allocation on 1 November 2019
• 5/12 of your funding allocation on 1 May 2020

If you are a new academy, free school or CTC, or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2019 to 2020 academic year, you receive:

• 7/12 of your total funding allocation on 1 March 2020
• 5/12 of your total funding allocation on 1 May 2020

Non-maintained special schools

We send non-maintained special schools their PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. You receive:

• 7/12 of your funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 1 November 2019
• 5/12 of your funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 1 May 2020

Further advice

You can get further advice at:

• GOV.UK teacher blog for best practice examples of how schools are using their premium effectively
• Swim England’s website for advice and resources on primary school swimming and water safety
• UK coaching’s primary schools toolkit for advice on employing sports coaches for your school
• Short films on the Sport England website for more advice on using the PE and sport premium effectively. Sport England produced these films in collaboration with the Association for Physical Education, the Youth Sport Trust, the County Sports Partnership Network, Sports Coach UK and Compass
• What works in schools and colleges to increase levels of physical activity among children and young people from Public Health England

You can also contact your local Active Partnership, the Association for PE, and Youth Sport Trust for support with spending your PE and sport premium.

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