Thank you to all the schools who have completed the PE and sport premium expenditure reporting return. We know some schools experienced digital issues trying to access the form before the original 31 July 2025 deadline. We have reopened the reporting window, and this will stay open until 5pm Tuesday 30 September 2025.

All schools that receive the funding must complete and send in the reporting return.

This is necessary to meet the grant requirements and failure to do so may result in the Secretary of State recovering some, or all the PE and sport premium grant that has been allocated.

Any schools which have not completed and submitted all relevant forms will be contacted by us to ensure they are meeting reporting requirements by Tuesday 30 September.

Please note that any school that has converted to an academy after 1 September 2025 should use the school’s previous 2024 / 25 UKPRN for DSI log-in details to access the expenditure reporting return.

To help you to meet the deadline, you can read further supporting information in the expenditure reporting guidance. For any queries, you can contact us via the customer help portal.

This guidance outlines how much PE and sport premium funding schools will receive for the academic year 2023 to 2024 and advice on how to spend it. Click HERE to download the updated grant conditions.

Click HERE to view afPE's Primary PE and sport premium page which includes lots of useful information and resources for schools in receipt of the funding.

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 2024 but we strongly recommend that you update it regularly.

Click HERE to download the PDF format of the template and HERE for the Word format.

Free Webinar – 13th September 2023 at 4pm:

Join us for a collaborative webinar that will focus on the changes to the Primary PE and sport premium guidance, and reporting procedures, with opportunities to submit questions and to speak with representatives from the Department for Education, the Association for Physical Education and the Youth Sport Trust. The webinar will take place on Wednesday 13th September 2023 at 4pm and will be free to attend.

Register and submit your questions HERE.

• Government confirms two-year plan to boost quality and equal access
• Kitemark to recognise schools providing girls with equal access to PE and sport
• PE and Sport Premium digital tool for primary schools to report on spending of their allocation

More girls are set to benefit as the Government publishes a two-year plan to improve equal access and the quality of PE and sport in schools for all pupils. The School Sport and Activity Action Plan will support teachers and schools to deliver two hours of high-quality PE and provide competitive and extra-curricular opportunities to both girls and boys.

On the 3rd May the Department updated the conditions of grant document by adding a spreadsheet showing the updated allocations for academic year 2022 to 2023. There has been no policy change to the content of this document. As set out in the PE and Sport Premium guidance, schools receive funding based on the number of pupils in years 1 to 6. In most cases, the Department determines how many pupils in schools attract the funding by using data from the January 2022 school census. It will base funding on data from the Autumn 2022 school census for new schools or any schools teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2022 to 2023. Funding is given to schools in two separate payments:

1. Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals, do not receive funding directly from DfE. The Department gives the funding to the local authority, and they pass it on. These schools will receive:
1. 7/12 of the funding allocation on 31 October 2022
2. 5/12 of the funding allocation on 28 April 2023

2. A new maintained school or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2022 to 2023 academic year do not receive funding directly from DfE. The Department gives the funding to the local authority, and they pass it on. These schools will receive:
1. 7/12 of the funding allocation on 27 February 2023
2. 5/12 of your funding allocation on 28 April 2023

3. Academies, free schools and CTCs will receive funding directly from the DfE. These schools receive:
1. 7/12 of the funding allocation on 8 November 2022
2. 5/12 of the funding allocation on 2 May 2023

4. A new academy (includes a free school) or CTC, or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2022 to 2023 academic year will receive:
1. 7/12 of your total funding allocation on 28 April 2023
2. 5/12 of your total funding allocation on 2 May 2023

5. Non-maintained special schools will receive funding directly from the DfE. These schools receive:
1. 7/12 of the funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 8 November 2022
2. 5/12 of the funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 3 May 2023

The last scheduled payments will have been sent to schools this month – hence the update to the spreadsheets within the conditions of grant.

Specifically on underspend: As set out in the March ESFA newsletter, the Department will be recovering unspent premium funding at the end of academic year 2023/24, there will be no recovery prior to this time.

Schools and local authorities must follow the terms and conditions set out in the PE and Sport Premium conditions of grant documents.

Read more about how to use the PE and Sport Premium.

Major Government funding announcement & commitment to PE and school sport

Today, on International Women’s Day the Government is setting out new standards for equal access to sports, making it clear that girls and boys should be offered the same sports during PE and extracurricular time in schools.

The package, outlined below, will help to boost equal opportunities in PE and school sport both inside and outside the classroom, delivering on promises made by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan to the Women’s Euro 22 winners the Lionesses.

The full package being announced today includes:

• Over £600 million across the next two academic years (2023-24 & 2024-25) for the continuation of the Primary PE and Sport Premium – a funding commitment to improve the quality of PE and sports in primary schools to help children benefit from regular activity
• Schools to deliver a minimum 2 hours of curriculum PE – with more support being offered through a refreshed School Sport Action Plan
• £22 million for two years of further funding for the School Games Organiser network (SGO) – Annually the 450 strong SGO workforce supports 2.2m participation opportunities for children including 28,000 competitive school sport events
• Equal access to sports in school – setting out that offering girls and boys the same sports, where it is wanted is the new standard
• Up to £57 million funding for the ‘Open Sports Facilities’ programme – to open up more school sport facilities outside of school hours especially targeted at girls, disadvantaged pupils and pupils with special educational needs
• A new digital reporting tool for Primary PE and Sport Premium – to support schools in using the funding to the best advantage of their pupils
• Expansion of the Schools Games Mark – to reward parity of provision for girls

The Primary PE and Sport Premium is designed to help children get an active start in life by improving the quality of PE and sports in primary schools. Headteachers can choose how best to spend this funding including on teacher training, offering more opportunities for pupils to take part in competition and widening the range of sports for both boys and girls.

Schools will receive updated guidance this summer setting out how to use the funding to the best advantage of their pupils. A new digital tool will be introduced for schools to report on their spending of the Primary PE and Sport Premium and allow the Government to understand where further guidance is needed.

Schools will be asked to offer a minimum of two hours curriculum PE time and Government will provide support to schools on how to do this through the upcoming refresh of the School Sport Action Plan.

Alongside this work, Ofsted will be publishing a report into PE in the coming months, which will inform future inspections and set out what they believe is possible in terms of offering high quality PE and equal access to sports.

The Government is also providing security for the School Games Organisers (SGO) network, with the commitment of funding until the end of the summer term 2025. The 450 strong SGO workforce offers over two million opportunities to participate in competitive sports. The programme delivers on the Government’s ambition to ensure that all children and young people, no matter their background, can be active.

This is part of the Government’s commitment to improve access to sport for everyone. £300 million is being used to build or improve thousands of grassroots football and multi-sport facilities across the UK by 2025.

Being active in childhood is vital to long-term wellbeing and physical and mental health. This major investment will help more children to keep fit, have a healthy start to life and will help save the NHS money in the years ahead.

Up to £57 million in funding will be used to allow up to 1,350 selected schools around England to keep their sport facilities open for longer for after-school activities (Opening Schools Facilities programme), especially targeted at girls, disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs.

afPE’s CEO, Sue Wilkinson MBE said:

“afPE is delighted at the news from the Department for Education regarding continued investment into physical education and school sport. The commitment to extend the Primary PE and Sport Premium funding by over £600 million for an additional two years, to the end of the academic year 2024/25 is welcome news and should be celebrated by the sector. This will enable all primary schools to plan effectively and efficiently on how best to address their needs. At a time of on-going challenges it is absolutely critical that schools have the resources to address the physical, emotional, social and cognitive development of all pupils.

“Minister Gibb has recently stated the importance of prioritising PE in the curriculum and that the Department would look at ‘lessons learned by schools’ placing PE at the heart of the curriculum. afPE is pleased that the work and subsequent research, instigated by the afPE Taskforce is making a difference.”

“We ask all head teachers and senior leaders, to use their ring fenced funding to make a difference through physical education, school sport and physical activity. Whilst all are different, they are inextricably linked and provide the route map to achieve effective and wider outcomes for pupils.”

“The planned progressive learning in and through PE will underpin the additional extended curriculum of school sport whilst embedding physical activity across the school. We are also pleased that the school games organiser funding (SGOs) is also extended. With an additional £57 Million confirmed for the Opening Schools Facilities programme ensuring more children and young people will be offered access and opportunities to engage in physical activities outside of the curriculum.”

“afPE will continue to offer support to members and the wider workforce to ensure that they can achieve an inclusive, ambitious and compelling PE curriculum that is accessible. We will continue to create resources and professional learning opportunities to support the workforce.”

“A free webinar will be available to all, to discuss the implications of the Primary PE and Sport Premium funding and provide support to complete the digital reporting tool, TBC in the week beginning March 20th.”

afPE’s Chair, Professor Jeanne Keay said:

“The Association warmly welcomes the commitment to fund an additional two years of the Primary PE and Sport Premium grant. afPE has worked tirelessly, along with national partners, members of the afPE Taskforce (chaired by Edward Timpson) and the sector to champion the necessity for government to continue their investment.

“The news today will positively impact the lives of children and young people for years to come. afPE believes that ‘transformational PE is the key to unlocking the secret garden to achievement and attainment’. It is critical that we support the PE curriculum entitlement for every child, including swimming and safe self-rescue.”

“In addition, we fully support the Government’s request that schools offer a minimum of two hours of curriculum PE time. We know from the work that afPE has done in assessing schools for the Quality Mark that where schools provide pupils with a curriculum that has two hours of PE throughout each key stage there is a clear link to transformational learning outcomes for those young people.”

Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak said:

“Last year the Lionesses’ victory changed the game. Young girls know when they take to the pitch that football is for them and, thanks to the Lionesses, they too could be a part of the next generation to bring it home for their country.

“We want schools to build on this legacy and give every girl the opportunity to do the same sports as boys, as well as provide a minimum of two hours of PE. This means every child can benefit from regular exercise and we are proud to provide them with the support needed to do so.”

Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, said:

“As someone who grew up in Liverpool, a city dominated by its love for football, I know first-hand the power of sport in bringing people together – whether on or off the pitch.

“Every child – girl or boy – should have access to high quality sport and activities. Not only are these opportunities great for both physical and mental health – but also for all those other skills young people will need throughout their life like teamwork and communication.”

“Today, on International Women’s Day, we are breaking down the barriers some children face to access sport and building on the Lionesses’ legacy to ensure girls have the same access to all their favourite sports as boys.”

On the Opening Schools Facilities programme, Andy Taylor, Chief Executive, Active Partnerships said:

“We are delighted that schools across England will receive a share of this new three-year investment to help them open up their sporting facilities outside of the normal school day.

“Working with our consortia partners our network of 43 Active Partnerships will support schools to develop and deliver their plans, working together to identify those local communities facing the greatest inequalities and help give them access to more varied opportunities to be physically active.”

“We aim to engage with 1350 schools throughout the funding programme.”

Culture Secretary, Lucy Frazer said:

“I will do all I can to help address inequality in sport and today’s announcement is a huge boost that will help give girls greater opportunities in schools across England. The Lionesses have undoubtedly inspired the next generation and it is vital that we make sure we have the structures in place at schools and the grassroots to capitalise on that and drive up participation for all the positive life benefits it brings.

“Having made £1 billion available to ensure the survival of the sport and leisure sector during the pandemic, we are now setting a new standard for ensuring children and young people have the opportunity to enjoy healthy and active lives both inside and outside of school.”

The Department for Education has updated the October 2022 allocations to take into account new and newly eligible providers who will receive their first allocation.

Read more HERE.

UK Parliment Hansard, a full transcript of yesterday’s commons debate on:

‘Sport in Schools and Communities‘

The debate includes a discussion about the future of the Primary PE and Sport Premium – read more HERE.

Updated Guidance from the Department for Education and how much PE and Sport Premium funding schools receive and advice on how it should be spent.

About the PE and Sport Premium

Schools have a central role to play in supporting all children and young people to live healthy active lives. This is particularly true of primary school where the foundations of positive and enjoyable participation in regular physical activity should be established.

Crucial to achieving this is ensuring that pupils have access to at least 30 minutes of physical activity during the school day, alongside high-quality PE provision taught by confident and knowledgeable teachers and opportunities to experience and participate in a wide range of sports and physical activities. PE and Sport Premium grant funding should be used by schools towards these aims.

How to use the PE and Sport Premium

Schools must use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the PE, sport and physical activity they provide.

This means that you must use the PE and Sport Premium to:

• build capacity and capability within the school to ensure that improvements made now are sustainable and will benefit pupils joining the school in future years
• develop or add to the PE, sport and physical activity that your school provides

Sustainable improvement

Making sustainable improvements should be considered as a priority. This is often achieved through developing and investing in the knowledge and skills of the teaching staff and other school staff who may have involvement in supporting a lasting change to the school’s approach to physical activity, curriculum PE or provision of school sport.

Key indicators

You should use the PE and Sport Premium to secure improvements in the following 5 key indicators:

1. Increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
2. Engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity
3. The profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole school improvement
4. Broader experience of a range of sports and physical activities offered to all pupils
5. Increased participation in competitive sport

Examples of how these may be achieved include:

• 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
• embedding physical activity into the school day through encouraging active travel to and from school, active break times and holding active lessons and teaching
• providing targeted activities or support to involve and encourage the least active children
• 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

Active mile

Active miles can be an effective way to make regular physical activity part of the school day. If schools choose to take part in an active mile, you should use existing playgrounds, fields, halls and sports facilities.

It is not appropriate to use PE and Sport Premium funding to fund the cost of a specially constructed course.

Raising attainment in primary school swimming

Swimming and water safety are national curriculum requirements and essential life skills. The national curriculum requirement is that by the end of key stage 2, pupils should be taught to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke *- perform a safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

You can use the PE and Sport Premium to fund the professional development and training that is available to schools to train staff to support high-quality swimming and water safety lessons for their pupils.

You can also use the PE and Sport Premium to provide additional top-up swimming lessons to pupils who have not been able to meet the national curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety - after the delivery of core swimming and water safety lessons.

What your funding should not be used for

You should not use your funding to:

• fund capital expenditure
• employ coaches or specialist teachers to cover planning preparation and assessment (PPA) arrangements - this should be funded from your core staffing budgets
• teach the minimum requirements of the national curriculum (or, in the case of academies and free schools, to teach your existing PE curriculum) - apart from top-up swimming lessons after pupils’ completion of core lessons

Capital expenditure

Where schools have an existing capitalisation policy, you should use this policy to determine whether proposed spending would be considered to be capital expenditure.

If a school does not have a capitalisation policy it remains for them to determine what qualifies as capital, but you might wish to use the following resources:

• local-authority-maintained schools: consistent financial reporting framework: capital expenditure
• academies: capital expenditure is defined in the academies handbook as: “capital assets or funding are those from which an entity expects to derive benefit for more than one year: typically land, buildings, vehicles and information technology. They are usually called fixed assets.”

Small purchases should not be capitalised. Your school or trust should determine an appropriate (de minimis) value, below which transactions should be charged to revenue.

Accountability

You are accountable for how you use the PE and Sport Premium funding allocated to you. The funding must be spent for the purpose it was provided – to make additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity offered.

As part of their role, governors and academy trustees should monitor:

• how the funding is being spent
• how it fits into school improvement plans
• the impact it is having on pupils

Schools and local authorities must follow the terms set out in the conditions of grant. If a local authority or a school fails to comply with these terms, the Secretary of State may require the repayment of the whole or any part of the premium paid to the local authority or school.

Online reporting

You must publish details of how you spend your PE and Sport Premium funding by 31 July 2023 at the latest.

Online reporting must clearly show:

• the amount of PE and Sport Premium received
• a full breakdown of how it has been spent or will be spent before of the end of the academic year
• the impact the school has seen on pupils’ PE, physical activity, and sport participation and attainment
• how the improvements will be sustainable in the future

You must also publish the percentage of pupils within your year 6 cohort in the 2022 to 2023 academic year who met the national curriculum requirement to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Attainment data for year 6 pupils should be provided from their most recent swimming lessons. This may be data from years 3, 4, 5 or 6, depending on the swimming programme at your school. It is essential to retain attainment data from swimming lessons in years 3 to 5 to be able to report this accurately in year 6.

To help you plan, monitor and report on the impact of your spending, partners in the physical education and school sport sector have developed a template. The template can be accessed through the Association for Physical Education and Youth Sport Trust websites. It is recommended that the template is used to record your activity throughout the year, in readiness of publication at the end of the school year.

Review of online reports

School online reporting will be monitored by DfE. We will look at a selection of schools’ online reports to confirm that use of the PE and Sport Premium described in the report meets the requirements outlined within this guidance and the conditions of grant document.

Where concerns or discrepancies are identified the department will make contact with the school to address and investigate these fully. In the event that any concerns are confirmed, appropriate and proportionate action will be taken against the school, which may include action to recover funding from the school.

Eligibility

Most schools with primary-age pupils receive the PE and Sport Premium in the academic year 2022 to 2023, including:

• schools maintained by the local authority
• academies (includes free schools)
• special schools (for children with special educational needs or disabilities)
• non-maintained special schools (schools for children with special educational needs that the Secretary of State for Education has approved under section 342 of the Education Act 1996)
• city technology colleges (CTCs)
• pupil referral units (PRUs provide education for children who cannot attend a mainstream school)
• general hospitals

The following types of schools do not receive this funding:

• nursery schools
• studio schools
• university technical colleges (UTCs)
• independent schools (except for non-maintained special schools, which do receive the funding)

How we calculate funding

Schools receive PE and Sport Premium funding based on the number of pupils in years 1 to 6.

In cases where schools do not follow year groups (for example, in some special schools), pupils aged 5 to 10 attract the funding.

In most cases, we determine how many pupils in your school attract the funding by using data from the January 2022 school census.

If you are a new school or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2022 to 2023, we will base your funding on data from the autumn 2022 school census.

Funding for 2022 to 2023

Schools with 16 or fewer eligible pupils receive £1,000 per pupil.

Schools with 17 or more eligible pupils receive £16,000 and an additional payment of £10 per pupil.

You can access the published allocations for 2022 to 2023 and read the conditions of grant for 2022 to 2023.

The breakdown of funding for the academic year 2021 to 2022 is also available.

Payment dates for 2022 to 2023

Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals

Maintained schools, including PRUs and general hospitals, do not receive funding directly from DfE. We give the funding to your local authority and they pass it on to you.

We give local authorities PE and Sport Premium funding for maintained schools in 2 separate payments. They receive:

• 7/12 of your funding allocation on 31 October 2022
• 5/12 of your funding allocation on 28 April 2023

If you are a new maintained school or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2022 to 2023 academic year, local authorities receive:

• 7/12 of your funding allocation on 27 February 2023
• 5/12 of your funding allocation on 28 April 2023

Academies, free schools and CTCs

We send academies (including free schools) and CTCs their PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. You receive:

• 7/12 of your funding allocation on 8 November 2022
• 5/12 of your funding allocation on 2 May 2023

If you are a new academy (includes a free school) or CTC, or if you are teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2022 to 2023 academic year, you receive:

• 7/12 of your total funding allocation on 28 April 2023
• 5/12 of your total funding allocation on 2 May 2023

Non-maintained special schools

We send non-maintained special schools their PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. You receive:

• 7/12 of your funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 8 November 2022
• 5/12 of your funding with the first payment you have scheduled with us after 3 May 2023

The Department for Education has published the Primary PE and Sport Premium allocations for 2022 to 2023, including the terms and conditions that local authorities, maintained schools and academies must follow.

Click HERE to view the documents.

The deadline for using Primary PE and Sport Premium allocated in the 2021 to 2022 academic year was 31st July 2022.

The exceptional permissions for schools to carry forward PE and Sport Premium funding which was granted during the COVID-19 pandemic has now ended. Any schools with unspent funding from 2021 to 22 academic year should make arrangements to return this to the Department. Please contact the DfE if you require advice on how to do this.

DfE will continue to sample school PE and Sport Premium reports. Where unspent 2021/22 funding is identified, DfE will seek to recover any monies which have not already been returned.