What is PE and Sport Premium?

In 2013, the government pledged to provide additional funding to primary schools to improve PE and sport provisions. The funding is provided by the Department for Education.

What is PE and Sports Premium for?

The funding is provided directly to primary schools and must only be spent on improving the quality of sport and PE, for all school children.

How much funding to Primary Schools receive?

For the 2023/24 academic year, each school will receive £16,000, plus an additional payment of £10 per pupil for Years 1-6. The money can only be spent on sport and PE provisions in schools. Eyrescroft will receive £18,490 PE and Sports Premium funding for the 2023/24 academic year.

How are we obliged to spend the funding?

We are required to use the funding to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PE and sport we offer. The government lists five key indicators for which schools should expect to see an improvement.

These are:

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

Ofsted assesses how primary schools use the primary PE and Sport Premium. They measure its impact on pupil outcomes, and how effectively academy trustees hold school leaders to account for this.

To guide us in our use of the funding, the government suggests ways in which we can effectively use the money.  These include PE and sport focused staff training and development; hiring qualified sports coaches; offering activities/school clubs targeted at less active children; entering more tournaments and competitions; and embedding physical activity into our school day as much as possible. 

We are not permitted to use the funding to employ coaches or specialist teachers to cover planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) arrangements, or to teach the minimum requirements of the national curriculum.

Our objectives are:

• to improve the provision of PE at Eyrescroft Primary School;
• for PE Provision to be judged as good by external monitoring;
• to broaden the sporting opportunities and experiences available to pupils;
• to help our children develop a love of sport and physical activity.

How do we use the funding at Eyrescroft?

The Highlees and Eyrescroft Federation values the benefits of PE and sport, and encourages our children to have healthy, active lifestyles. In our experience, an innovative, varied PE curriculum, and extracurricular opportunities, have a positive influence on the concentration, attitude, and academic achievement of all our children.

At Eyrescroft, we aim to develop agility, co-ordination and confidence through physical activity, with the help of our dedicated sports coach, Mr Clements. All pupils average two sessions of PE a week, covering dance, gymnastics, games and athletics.  Years 4 to 6 have swimming sessions, where the children develop the skills required to ensure they are confident swimmers by the time they leave for secondary school. We encourage a competitive spirit whilst recognising the value of co-operation, fair play and team work. 

Eyrescroft offers a variety of sports clubs for the children to participate in and enjoy; these include football, multi-sports and dance.  We also participate in a variety of sporting activities within the Local Authority cluster:  boys' and girls' football, hockey, bowling and multi-skills.                                                                                               

Physical Education is a vital part of our children’s education and we pride ourselves in the way we help to develop their knowledge of a healthy lifestyle and their formation of positive attitudes.

What improvements has the funding allowed us to make?

• We have worked collaboratively with the Schools Games Partnership through which we have taken part in a selection of festivals: multi-sports, football tournaments, Quick Sticks Hockey Tournaments and the SEND Panathlon Challenge. 
• We have worked in partnership with the Northampton Saints Rugby Club which enabled all children at Eyrescroft to have a taste of rugby with one of their community coaches.  Alongside this, our Year 5 cohort have enjoyed a term of training with the Saints to develop their teamwork and physical skills.
• Health and Well-Being Project: a health and wellbeing resource for schools to use to improve inactivity and support improvement in attainment for Key Stage 2 students. Through this scheme, the agility of children has improved immensely and they enjoyed being active.
• Sports Coaching for staff  to help the teachers up-level their skills through in-house training. As a result, children are assessed with higher accuracy allowing teachers to ensure PE and sport provisions are tailored to meet individual needs.
• By the end of the academic year 2022, 41% of our Year 6 children could swim competently, meeting the national curriculum requirement to swim confidently and proficiently: over a distance of at least 25 metres, using a range of strokes effectively, and able to perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

Please see the below reports which include a breakdown of how our funding has been used and how we intend to ensure future sustainability.