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Government Guidance on PE and sport premium for primary schools

Allocations and conditions of the grant

Access published PE and sport premium allocations on the ‘Manage your education and skills funding’ service.

Schools and local authorities must follow the terms and conditions in the conditions of grant documents.

Eligibility

Most schools with primary-age pupils receive the PE and sport premium in the academic year 2018 to 2019, 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:

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 2018 school census.

If you are a new school or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2018 to 2019, we will base your funding on data from the autumn 2018 school census.

Funding for 2018 to 2019

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.

The breakdown of funding for the academic year 2017 to 2018, including conditions of grant, is available.

Payment dates for 2018 to 2019

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 2018
  • 5/12 of your funding allocation on 30 April 2019

If you are a new maintained school or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2018 to 2019, local authorities receive:

  • 7/12 of your funding allocation on 31 January 2019
  • 5/12 of your funding allocation on 30 April 2019

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 2018
  • 5/12 of your funding allocation on 1 May 2019

If you are a new academy, free school or CTC, or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2018 to 2019, you receive:

  • 7/12 of your total funding allocation on 1 February 2019
  • 5/12 of your total funding allocation on 1 May 2019

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 2018
  • 5/12 of your funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 1 May 2019

How to use the PE and sport premium

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

Active miles

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

The premium can be used to fund the professional development and training that are 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 national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety after the delivery of core swimming and water safety lessons. At the end of key stage 2 all pupils are expected to be able to swim confidently and know how to be safe in and around water.

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.

Further information on training and resources is available.

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

Accountability

Ofsted inspections

Ofsted assesses how primary schools use the primary PE and sport premium. They measure its impact on pupil outcomes, and how effectively governors hold school leaders to account for this.

You can find details of what inspectors look for in the ‘effectiveness of leadership and management’ section of the Ofsted schools inspection handbook 2018.

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 2019 at the latest. This is different to last year’s reporting deadline. 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 2018 to 2019 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.

To help you plan, monitor and report on the impact of your spending, it’s recommended that you download a template to record and publish your activity. We have commissioned partners in the physical education and school sport sector to develop a template. The template can be accessed through the Association for PE and Youth Sport Trust websites.

School compliance reviews

We will sample a number of schools in each local authority to review what they have published on their use of the funding and their swimming attainment. 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.

Further advice

You can get further advice at: