It is widely recognised that physical activity is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle for children. The UK Chief Medical Officers’ recommendations are that children should have at least 60 minutes physical activity each day (with SEND children recommended to have at least 20 minutes activity). The DfE’s expectation is that primary schools should create opportunities for at least 30 minutes of this daily physical activity. To support them in doing this and to bring about overall improvement in the quality of primary PE, the PE and Sport Premium grant provides most primary schools with £16000, plus an additional £10 per pupil each year.

DfE’s guidance for how the grant should be spent places emphasis on achieving long-term, sustainable benefits through, for example, CPD for staff to increase their knowledge and confidence in delivering PE and sport. It can be used to broaden the range of types of sport offered at school and to encourage equal participation in sport and physical activity, including engaging children who are the least active. As well as raising the overall level of physical activity throughout the school day, the funding can also be used to facilitate additional extra-curricular clubs, to increase opportunities for competitive sport and to provide additional ‘top-up’ swimming lessons. DfE stipulates that the grant should not be used to pay for sports coaches to replace staff in delivering core PE lessons or for capital projects (e.g. on large scale fixed playground equipment that has a value of over £2,000). It must also be spent within the current academic year.

The full DfE guidance for PE and Sport Premium spending can be found HERE

Enrich Education Products and Services

Enrich Education’s ‘Orienteering and Outdoor Learning’ and ‘Quidditch’ products are an excellent fit with PE and Sport Premium grant criteria; they can also make a very effective contribution to the types of priority that schools frequently identify for this spending. As a Business Associate for AfPE (the Association for Physical Education) and a Youth Sports Trust ‘Changemaker Business’ Enrich are well placed to help schools with effective use of their PE and Sport Premium grant and with reporting grant spend.

For most schools, both Orienteering and Quidditch are introduced as new sports, which provide unique opportunities to engage and motivate all pupils. They involve high levels of physical activity and help children develop new skills, as well as reinforcing existing PE/games skills. The Enrich ‘Orienteering and Outdoor Learning’ resources are particularly effective in helping schools deliver high quality OAA, an element of the PE curriculum identified by OfSTED as being very challenging for many schools. Enrich Education’s ‘Quidditch’ and ‘Orienteering and Outdoor Learning’ both include comprehensive whole staff training and professional development (endorsed by 1st4sport), enabling all staff to confidently incorporate them into their planning and delivery. Orienteering creates excellent opportunities for physically active learning and the Enrich online hub offers schools an extensive and diverse range of lessons and activities in subjects across the whole curriculum. Finally, Enrich Education’s ‘Quidditch’ and ‘Orienteering and Outdoor Learning’ can be used for innovative extra-curricular opportunities and for competition both within the school and with other schools.

Accountability and Reporting

As part of the grant conditions, schools must publish a report on their school website, detailing how they have spent their PE and sport premium funding allocation by the end of each academic year (with most schools using the template that has been created by AfPE and the Youth Sport Trust for this purpose). In addition, the DfE are introducing a ‘digital tool’ for all schools to use to summarise how they have used their funding allocation. This will be launched in May/June 2024, piloted in academic year 2023,24 and will become a mandatory requirement for 2024,25. To assist schools in completing these templates, Enrich Education have produced two exemplar templates, based on the AfPE/Youth Sports Trust template, which give examples of the types of actions and impacts around PE and physical activity for which schools use our products and services, as well as some potential measures that schools could use to demonstrate the impact of their spend.

Ready to maximise the impact of your PE and Sport Premium? Contact Enrich Education today to learn more about our support and guidance services.