The government is providing additional funding to improve provision of physical education (PE) and sport in primary schools. This funding – provided jointly by the Departments for Education, Health and Culture, Media and Sport – has been allocated to primary school head teachers.
This funding is ring-fenced and therefore can only be spent on provision of PE and sport in schools.
Purpose of funding
Schools must spend the additional funding on improving their provision of PE and sport, but schools have been given the freedom to choose how they do this. A list of possible uses has been suggested.
Buckton Vale has decided to use the money to:
- support and engage the least active children in physical activities
- pay for professional development opportunities for teachers in PE and sport
- increase pupils’ participation in the sports and physical activities
- provide places for pupils on before and after school sports clubs
- improve resources to a support the development of the subject
- build up a partnership with Mossley Hollins
How are we using our Sports Premium funding?
At Buckton Vale, we truly maximise the use of our Sports Premium budget. Both during school hours and after, we provide many opportunities for children to access Physical Education and sports, through a wide range of expertise and professionals as well as school staff.
Each day, the children are encouraged to participate in a variety of sporting activities with Inspire coaches. These activities range from basketball to tennis, cricket and football. Inspire also run several afterschool sports clubs throughout the week (such as football, dodgeball and dance).
Every Monday, a sports coach from Active Tameside leads our PE lessons in school hours. This also doubles up as Continuing Professional Development for the class teachers. They also provide an afterschool club on Mondays. Also through Active Tameside, our year 5 children attend swimming lessons each Wednesday throughout the year. Year 5 is a good year for PE and sports, as they also benefit from a road safety “Bikeability” course.
As a school, we have been very successful in recent years when it comes to inter-school competitions across Tameside. We regularly participate in an array of sporting events and competitions: hockey (Quicksticks), athletics (QuadKids), football, dodgeball, tag rugby, cheerleading and netball (to name just a few!). On top of these Tameside-wide competitions, we also compete against our Mossley partner schools – coming out as winners of the 2021 Mossley Olympics. There are frequent “extras” that we organise for our children too – the Santa Dash and Daily Mile challenges for example.
This is all over and above the money spent on PE equipment and regular lessons that follow the national curriculum. So as you can see, PE and sports really do play a central role in the daily life of the school.