At St Mary & St Michael's, we recognise the contribution of PE to the health and well-being of the children. We believe that an innovative, varied PE curriculum and extra-curricular opportunities have a positive influence on the concentration, attitude and academic achievement of all our children.

Our Primary School Sport’s Funding will enable us to continue and extend our provision through employing additional sports professionals, entering into more competitive sports competitions and training our staff to deliver in-house quality PE sessions.

Primary School’s Sports Funding

See below for the Department of Education link to the Primary School’s Sports Funding page.

• Click here for the Department of Education link to the Primary School’s Sports Funding page.

What is the Sports 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.

  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.