What is Sport Premium Funding?

The government gives primary schools Sport Premium funding each academic year.  This funding is provided to give young people a positive experience of sport, in the hope of creating sporting habits which will last a lifetime.   They acknowledge that increased investment in the delivery of sport and PE can have wider benefits.  Improving physical health is the obvious one of course, but it can also improve pupils mental well-being and behaviour in the classroom.   The funding is there to help children reach the recommended guidelines of doing 60 minutes of exercise per day across the week, 30 mins per day of which should be done at school.

How much Sport Premium Funding does each school receive?

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.  So,  a school with 100 pupils receives £17,000 of Sport Premium Funding.

Further information is available on the government website.

How to use Sport Premium Funding?

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.  There are five key areas in which the Sport Premium Funding should be used for;

1. Engagement of all pupils in physical activity.   Particularly getting the least active children more active.  Here at Finding Fitness we offer clubs such as Scootering and Ultimate Frisbee which often appeal to ‘less sporty’ children.  We offer small group intervention lessons to give children the time and space to enjoy sport and PE.  See our Small Group Interventions page for more information.
2. Profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement.   Great ways to do this are to do PE based activities during break and lunchtimes.  Schools that work with Finding Fitness benefit from having us with them all day, so we help with this.  Our coach will set up a different sporting challenge each week on the day that we’re in.  For the rest of the week children continue to do the challenges and try to beat their scores.  One week this might be basketball bounces, the next week bounce and hit with a tennis racket, the next week skipping, for example.
3. Increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport.  Finding Fitness coaches work alongside class teachers to improve their knowledge and delivery in a wide range of sports.  If there’s one sport or area of PE your staff aren’t comfortable with, we can help.  From the lesson planning, the delivery, the setting up, use of the correct terminology – we can work with your class teachers to build their confidence and ability.
4. Broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to all pupils.  The schools that we work with tend to change their after school or before school activities each half term.  This ensures that children get to experience a wide range of extra curricular clubs, so they should find something that they take to.  The key is to make these clubs as exciting and diverse as possible; one term Yoga, the next term Scootering, then Ultimate Frisbee, then Boxercise and so on.  This gives pupils a great chance of finding a sport of exercise option that they can get their teeth into.
5. Increased participation in competitive sport.  Creating links with other schools is crucial.  Children will love representing their school and competing against other local schools.  The trick here is to ensure that children practise and train in the sport prior to doing the competition.  We’ve seen teams turn up for competitions without preparing and they don’t have much chance!  So make sure children have the training prior to the event to give them maximum opportunity to do well, and most of all enjoy it!

Finding Fitness have been working with primary schools since 2012.  To see how we can benefit your school, please get in touch.  We’d love to hear from you!

Email: jack@finding-fitness.co.uk   Phone: 07536068042