How much PE and sport premium funding schools receive and advice on how it should be spent.

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

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. The restrictions on using the PE and sport premium remain current.

Carried forward unspent PE and sport premium grant funding from the 2019 to 2020 academic year

As a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the Department for Education took 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 2020 to 2021 academic year.

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 2020 to 2021 conditions of grant documents reflect this.

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 Officers 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.

How to use the PE and sport premium

Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the physical education (PE), physical activity and sport they provide. This includes any carried forward funding from the 2019 to 2020 academic year, which must be spent by 31 March 2021.

This means that you should use the PE and sport 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

You should use the PE and sport 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:

  • actively encourage pupils to take on leadership or volunteer roles that support the delivery of sport and physical activity within the school (such as ‘sport leader’ or peer-mentoring schemes)
  • embedding physical activity into the school day through encouraging active travel to and from school, active break times and holding 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, appropriate 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 and PE specialists to work alongside teachers to enhance or extend current opportunities offered to pupils

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

  • introducing a new range of 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 sports and physical activities and clubs
  • providing more and broadening the variety of extra-curricular activities after school in the 3 to 6pm window, delivered by the school or other local sports organisations

Increased participation in competitive sport, for example by:

  • increasing and actively encouraging 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 and the 7 top tips for spending the Primary PE and sport premium, found on the Association for PE and Youth Sport Trust websites, 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 you 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

If schools choose to take part in an active mile, they should use 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. The 3 requirements for swimming and water safety are that by the end of key stage 2 pupils should be taught to:

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

You can use the PE and sport premium 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.

You can also use the PE and sport premium 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.

You are required to publish information on the percentage of pupils in year 6 who met each of the 3 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 – apart from 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 – DfE 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

You are accountable for how you use of the PE and sport premium funding allocated to you. You are expected to spend the grant for the purpose it was provided – 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 2021 at the latest. If you have any carried forward funding from academic year 2019 to 2020 you should show separately how this funding has been spent and confirm that it has been spent before 31 March 2021.

Online reporting must include:

  • 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

You are also required to publish the percentage of pupils within your year 6 cohort in the 2020 to 2021 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, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke
  • 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 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 is 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. Active Partnerships review the published information on selected schools’ websites to ensure it meets the requirements on PE and sport premium funding and swimming attainment. The results are then shared with DfE and 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 2020 to 2021, 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 cannot attend 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 do not 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 by using data from the January 2020 school census.

If you are a new school or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2020 to 2021, we will base your funding on data from the autumn 2020 school census.

Funding for 2020 to 2021

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 2020 to 2021 and read the conditions of grant for 2020 to 2021.

The breakdown of funding for the academic year 2019 to 2020 is also available.

Payment dates for 2020 to 2021

Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals

Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals, do not receive funding directly from 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. They receive:

  • 7/12 of your funding allocation on 30 October 2020
  • 5/12 of your funding allocation on 30 April 2021

If you are a new maintained school or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2020 to 2021 academic year, local authorities receive:

  • 7/12 of your funding allocation on 26 February 2021
  • 5/12 of your funding allocation on 30 April 2021

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 2 November 2020
  • 5/12 of your funding allocation on 4 May 2021

If you are a new academy, free school or CTC, or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2020 to 2021 academic year, you receive:

  • 7/12 of your total funding allocation on 1 March 2021
  • 5/12 of your total funding allocation on 4 May 2021

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 2 November 2020
  • 5/12 of your funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 4 May 2021

Further guidance

You can get further guidance at:

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.

Published 19 September 2014
Last updated 30 October 2020 + show all updates

  1. Updated sections relating to coronavirus (COVID-19), accountability and how to use funding.

  2. Added link to details for the 2020 to 2021 academic year, including conditions of grant (not 2021 to 2022 as appeared in error on previous change note)

  3. Includes link to the Conditions of Grant for 2021 to 2022

  4. Added section ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) update’.

  5. We have added a link to the published allocations and conditions of grant for 2019 to 2020.

  6. Updated for the 2019 to 2020 academic year.

  7. We have confirmed that the £320 million PE and Sport Premium will continue in the 2019 to 2020 academic year.

  8. Corrected allocation date: new academies, free schools, and CTCs will receive seven-twelfths of their 2018 to 2019 allocation on 1 March 2019.

  9. Information on the 2018 to 2019 funding amounts and when schools will receive payments.

  10. Updated for the academic year 2017 to 2018.

  11. Added details about funding for 2017 to 2018.

  12. Updated information for the 2016 to 2017 academic year.

  13. Added link to allocations data for the 2015 to 2016 academic year.

  14. Updated information for the 2015 to 2016 academic year.

  15. Added links to Sports Coach UK’s coaching portal and to a series of short films about the PE and sport premium.

  16. Added a link to the County Sports Partnerships (CSP) Network website where schools can find contact details for their local CSP.

  17. Added the breakdown of funding for the academic year 2014 to 2015, including conditions of grant.

  18. First published.

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