DfE announces additional significant investment in opening school facilities

05/02/21

The Department for Education will today be announcing an investment of £10.1 million of funding into schools across England this academic year, to help enable existing school sports and swimming facilities to be opened outside of school hours.

This new funding will help more children and young people to be active and take part in sport at a time when they need it most. It will also support schools to make longer-term, sustainable changes to make the best use of their facilities, for example through building partnerships with local sport providers to provide the right opportunities for pupils and increasing inclusive access for pupils with SEND.

This investment, building on a previous £1.6m investment in this area, increases the funding available to support schools to open their facilities outside of school hours. The initial investment enabled many schools to begin the process of opening their facilities and work with their local Active Partnership for support with sanitation, marketing, websites, local partnerships and more.

This investment is designed to encourage pupils to be more physically active, in line with the objectives of the School Sport and Activity Action Plan. This additional funding will be distributed through Sport England and Active Partnerships.

Active Partnerships will work with schools to target the investment and schools will be given the opportunity to bid for the funding.

Example suggestions of how this funding might be used:

• To support schools with reopening their sport facilities in a Covid-secure manner, such as with additional signage, touch-free entry and cleaning equipment.
• To support schools with reopening swimming pools, for example to conduct water testing or plant servicing.
• To improve the accessibility of school sports facilities, especially for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. This could include buying adaptive sports equipment.

This will be announced today alongside a substantial investment from the department in school rebuilding.

For those who are interested in further information about our work to open facilities outside of the school day, we will be providing an opportunity to learn more through a follow up session, and we will keep you updated on how this grant progresses.