The Department for Education has confirmed that the PESP funding will continue at £320 million for the 2020/21 academic year. The funding is a ring fenced grant for English primary schools to provide additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PESSPA. Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of their Physical Education (PE), physical activity and sport. For further information relating to the PESP funding and school's requirements, including information on the use of underspend from 2019/20 please visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pe-and-sport-premium-for-primary-schools#coronavirus-covid-19-update

This means that you should use the 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

In addition, a new '7 Top Tips for spending the Primary PE and Sport Premium' document has been created to give schools some ideas on effective and sustainable use of the funding.

Click on the links below to download the following documents:

• Updated guidance on the Primary PE and Sport premium
• Grant conditions 2020-21
• 7 top tips for spending the Primary PE and Sport premium

Updated Template

A newly updated template to support schools with the reporting of their Primary PE and sport premium funding has also been published

Maintained schools, including those that convert to academies, MUST publish, on their website, information about their effective and sustainable use of the Primary PE and Sport Premium funding. The reporting deadline for this current academic year is 31st July 2021

Please Note: Due to disruption caused by Covid-19 the Department for Education (DfE) has given permission for schools to 'carry over' any underspend from the academic year 2019/20 into this year 2020/21, but this must be spent and reported on by 31st March 2021.

What to Publish

Schools must publish the amount of Primary PE and Sport Premium received for this year 2020/21; a full breakdown of how it has been spent (or will be spent); what impact the school has seen on pupils' Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity, participation and attainment, how the improvements will be sustainable in the future and Year 6 swimming data.

Head Teachers, Subject Leaders and Governors can use the simple reporting mechanism to ensure they are grant compliant in demonstrating effective use of the grant to achieve a sustainable impact.

Click HERE to download a MS Word copy of the template.

Further information and all relevant documentation related to PESP can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pe-and-sport-premium-for-primary-schools

The DfE have released 5 key indicators that they feel schools should expect to see improvement across if using the premium correctly:

• 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

Our role, as the city's Active Partnership, is to offer guidance and support in terms of your PE & Sport Premium. We do this by:

• Supporting schools to develop teaching and learning for staff by signposting and facilitating continual professional development opportunities.
• Offering 1 to 1 support through our School Sport Advisor service. Our advisor works with schools to offer specialist advice and support to develop high quality PE & School Sport bespoke to your needs.
• Supporting schools to help build capacity within their staff by signposting to appropriate partners such as afPE, Youth Sport Trust, Sports Coach UK and local partners; minimum operating standards of coaches, and establishing links to local physical activity opportunities and sport clubs.
• Supporting schools to gain access to additional funding streams.
• General support e.g. advice on purchasing kit and equipment, or how to increase schools access to competition.

We are also tasked with looking at Primary School's websites to see if their spending has been uploaded and feeding this information back to the DfE via the Active Partnerships team. We will use this information as a source of data to develop wider insight into the impact of the PE & Sport Premium funding within Birmingham.