PE and sport premium for primary schools
How much PE and sport premium funding schools will receive for the academic year 2024 to 2025 and advice on how to spend it.
Applies to England
About the PE and sport premium
All children and young people should live healthy active lives. The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend that all children and young people should take part in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes every day, with the recommendation for disabled children and young people being 20 minutes of physical activity per day.
It is important that schools are supporting children and young people to achieve this aim. This is particularly true of primary schools where the foundations of positive and enjoyable participation in regular physical activity are embedded.
The Department for Education (DfE) wants all children to have equal access to high-quality PE provision and opportunities to experience and participate in a wide range of sports and physical activities. Schools should aim to provide high-quality PE and sport for at least 2 hours a week, complemented by a wide range of extracurricular sport and competitive opportunities. By providing this it can help improve children’s health and wellbeing, personal development as well as academic attainment.
Schools should use the PE and sport premium funding to support children to meet 60 active minutes and achieve the above aims. This funding must not be used for core-type school activities. Schools should use it to:
- make additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity they provide
- provide or improve equal access to sport for boys and girls
- ensure teachers have the relevant skills and knowledge to confidently teach PE in a structured way, prioritising continued professional development (CPD) and training where needed
Eligibility
Most schools with primary-age pupils receive the PE and sport premium. The exceptions are:
- nursery schools
- studio schools
- university technical colleges
- independent schools, except for non-maintained special schools
How funding is calculated and the amounts payable for 2024 to 2025
Schools receive PE and sport premium funding based on the number of pupils they have in years 1 to 6. In cases where schools may not have set year groups (for example, in some special schools), pupils aged 5 to 10 attract the funding.
In most cases, we determine funding by using data from the January 2024 school census. For a new school, or a school teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2024 to 2025, funding is based on data from the autumn 2024 school census.
For the year 2024 to 2025, the amounts payable will be:
- schools with 16 or fewer eligible pupils will receive £1,000 per pupil
- schools with 17 or more eligible pupils will receive £16,000 and an additional payment of £10 per pupil
Payment dates for 2024 to 2025
Maintained schools, including PRUs and hospital schools
Maintained schools, including pupil referral units (PRUs) and hospital schools, do not receive funding directly from DfE. We give the funding to the local authority and they pass it on to the school.
We give local authorities PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. They will receive:
- 7/12 of the funding allocation on 31 October 2024
- 5/12 of the funding allocation on 30 April 2025
For a new maintained school or one that is teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2024 to 2025 academic year, local authorities will receive:
- 7/12 of the school’s funding allocation on 28 February 2025
- 5/12 of the school’s funding allocation on 30 April 2025
Academies and free schools
We send academies (including free schools) the PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. They will receive:
- 7/12 of the funding allocation on 8 November 2024
- 5/12 of the funding allocation on 9 May 2025
An academy (including a free school) which is new, or teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the 2024 to 2025 academic year, will receive:
- 7/12 of the funding allocation on 10 March 2025
- 5/12 of the funding allocation on 9 May 2025
Each qualifying school within a multi-academy trust (MAT) will receive an allocation of PE and sport premium grant funding. If this funding is then pooled by the MAT, it does not remove the requirement for it to be used for the benefit of the children in every primary school in the MAT.
Non-maintained special schools
We send non-maintained special schools the PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. They will receive:
- 7/12 of the funding allocation on 18 December 2024
- 5/12 of the funding allocation on 18 April 2025
Using the PE and sport premium
Any use of the PE and sport premium must be in accordance with the terms outlined in the conditions of grant document. This means schools must use the PE and sport premium to:
- build capacity and capability in the school and make sure that improvements made to the quality of PE, sport and physical activity provision now are sustainable and will benefit pupils joining the school in future
- develop or add to the PE, sport and physical activity that the school provides
Effective ways to spend the premium
It is important that schools make the most effective use of the premium. To best achieve this, spending should focus on making improvements in 5 key areas, to assist in:
- increasing confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sporting activities
- increasing engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity and sporting activities
- raising the profile of PE and sport across the school, to support whole school improvement
- offer a broader and more equal experience of a range of sports and physical activities to all pupils
- increasing participation in competitive sport
These may be achieved by:
- embedding physical activity into the school day by encouraging active travel to and from school and having active break times
- providing targeted activities or support to involve and encourage the least active children
- helping to provide equal access for all pupils to the range of sports and physical activities that the school offers
- providing continued professional development (CPD) for all staff (as outlined previously)
- providing extra-curricular opportunities for children to enable them to access other sporting activities or specialist sport instruction
- providing top-up swimming and water safety lessons for those pupils that do not meet national curriculum requirements after they have completed core swimming and water safety lessons
- providing specialist support to help children with additional needs to access and participate fully in PE lessons
- entering local school competitions and holding inter-house competitions in the school to encourage participation
We’ve collated real-life working ] to help understand ways this can be implemented.
Continuing professional development
Achieving sustainable outcomes is key to any spending of the PE and sport premium. CPD is essential to help ensure that the quality of the teaching of high-quality PE, sport and physical activity in a school is sustainable. Schools should prioritise spending the PE and sport premium on it. This includes providing staff with:
- professional development
- mentoring and support
- appropriate training
- access to external resources
It is acceptable to engage the expertise of external coaches to provide teachers with the confidence and necessary skills to be able to deliver high-quality PE and sport.
We recommend that schools use established quality assured local, regional and national subject-specific, and suitably qualified CPD providers.
Schools should monitor and assess the effectiveness of the CPD being provided to make sure that it is up to standard.
Every school has the autonomy to draft their own employment contracts. This may include specific expectations for their staff and teachers like:
- offering extra-curricular sporting activities
- supporting pupil competition outside of core school hours.
Schools can decide to use PE and sport premium funding to pay for overtime if teaching staff are operating outside of their teaching contract. This may be, for example, to:
- offer CPD for staff
- offer additional extra-curricular sporting activities and physical activities
- support pupils in competition
Any funding to cover teaching during the school day should come out of core school budgets.
Schools will need to assess how overtime payments can lead to additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity they provide.
Use of external coaches
Whilst we acknowledge that schools may want to engage the expertise of coaches and external organisations to offer a wider variety of sports and activities for their pupils, we would expect schools to use this as an opportunity to upskill teaching staff.
As part of meeting the aim to make sustainable improvements to provision, coach-led activity should include staff development. By upskilling staff, it could then remove the need for regular coach-led incentives, as staff would have the knowledge and skills to be able to deliver or support specific sport or activity provision.
Governing bodies, trustees or proprietors should seek assurance that providers have appropriate safeguarding and child protection policies and procedures in place, including inspecting these as needed.
Transport costs
Schools should not be using the PE and sport premium to pay for transport associated with meeting the minimum requirements of the national curriculum or, for academies, the existing PE curriculum. This would include travel to swimming lessons, travel to outdoor adventure activities or other sports or activities the school was providing access to during the school day.
Schools can use the PE and sport premium to:
- fund transport costs to top-up swimming sessions
- participate in competitive events (either during or outside the school day)
- travel to extra-curricular opportunities to enable children access to other sporting activities or specialist sport instruction
Support networks and organisations
There are several organisations and networks that support schools with their PE and sport premium. We have included relevant links to further guidance and support at the end of this guidance as examples. We also want to make schools aware of the School Games Organiser network and Active Partnerships.
School Games Organisers network
School Games Organisers (SGOs) support all children to have the opportunity to take part in competitive sport. This national network of SGOs works directly with local schools to coordinate inclusive sport competitions across 40 different sports and activities.
In March 2023, £22 million was committed to support the SGO network for two academic years until 2025, by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The investment into the SGO network is managed by Sport England on behalf of DCMS, and Sport England invests in the Youth Sport Trust (YST) to play a coordinating and supportive role directly to the network.
SGOs have several key roles, to:
- coordinate appropriate competitive opportunities for all young people from Key Stage 2 to 4
- recruit, train, and deploy a suitable workforce
- support the development of club opportunities for all young people
Schools may wish to get in touch with their local SGO to determine whether there are any avenues for engagement or support. Your local SGO may be able to signpost you to relevant opportunities for your pupils to get active.
Find out more about the School Games programme.
Active Partnerships
Active Partnerships (APs) is a nationwide physical activity and sport network that exists to create a healthier, fairer nation. The 43 local APs across the country take a place-based approach to reducing disparities and partner with local and national stakeholders to transform lives through sport and physical activity. APs are supported and funded by Sport England to co-deliver the ambitions of its 10-year Uniting the Movement strategy.
Schools may wish to get in touch with the local AP to determine whether there are any avenues for engagement or support. You can find your local AP through the Active Partnerships website.
What the PE and sport premium cannot be used for
Funding must not be used for:
- capital expenditure, except for goods below the de minimis value (the threshold limit value set for purchases) – items above this limit would be recognised as an asset on the school’s balance sheet
- employing coaches or specialist teachers to cover planning preparation and assessment arrangements (this should be funded from the school’s core staffing budgets)
- teaching the minimum requirements of the national curriculum or, for academies, the existing PE curriculum (teaching the curriculum should be funded through the school’s core funding)
- staff salaries – for example, using your premium funding allocation to employ someone whose role is to specifically administer the PE and sport premium, or to use your entire funding allocation to employ someone that is responsible for arranging and running PE, sport or activity sessions
- buying services that will be delivered or used in following academic years (this includes paying for invoices and subscriptions in advance)
- buying staff PE kit
Examples of what comes under capital expenditure include:
- multi-use games areas and active mile tracks
- forest school environments and Trim Trails
- buying vehicles
- fixed playground equipment, such as climbing frames
- trophy cabinets or similar
Examples of what schools should pay for from their staffing budget include:
- funding to cover teaching during the school day
- funding the cost of a teaching assistant or apprentice to deliver PE lessons instead of teaching staff
Defining capital expenditure
Capital expenditure for the purposes of this grant funding is defined as ‘the purchase of an asset (tangible or intangible), or expenditure which adds to or enhances and not merely maintains the value of an existing asset’.
For expenditure to be treated as capital, the asset must:
- be used for more than one year
- be above the school’s (local authority’s or trust’s) de minimis threshold for recognition of assets to its balance sheet – this can include:
- individual assets worth over the de minimis threshold
- grouped assets, that is assets of a similar nature that the school buys at the same time, which cost more than the de minimis threshold
- bulked assets, for example a bulk purchase of equipment where the value of the individual item is below the set value, which cost more overall than the de minimis threshold
- increase the useful life, performance or value of the asset
If the spending would trigger asset recognition for the school or local authority, under your own local accounting policy, the spending would not be eligible to be funded through this grant.
Schools can use grant funds to maintain existing assets because the funding can be used towards maintenance costs. For example, repainting lines on the playground is allowable. The playground should already be recognised as an asset, and the cost of repainting lines on it is a revenue maintenance cost.
Swimming and water safety lessons
Schools receive general funding for curriculum provision, which includes swimming and water safety lessons. Schools should therefore not use the PE and sport premium to fund curriculum swimming and water safety lessons.
Schools can use PE and sport premium funding to provide top-up swimming and water safety sessions. This can include the cost of transport for those pupils that do not meet national curriculum requirements after they have completed core swimming and water safety lessons.
Accountability and reporting
Schools are accountable for how they use the PE and sport premium funding allocated to them. The school’s senior leadership team should make sure that the funding is spent for the purpose it has been 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 and determine how it fits into school improvement plans and assess the impact it is having on pupils. To assist with this, in conjunction with the National Governance Association (NGA) and the Local Government Association (LGA) we have devised a monitoring tool that can be used for this purpose.
Schools, local authorities and academy proprietors must follow the terms set out in the conditions of grant document. If a school, local authority or academy proprietor fails to comply with these terms, the Secretary of State may require the school to repay all or any part of the premium paid.
Spending in an academic year
Schools must spend the PE and sport premium funding in full within the academic year it has been allocated for. As funding is provided for all pupils in years 1 to 6, it should not be allocated to only benefit a certain year group.
Schools cannot roll over any unused funding into the following academic year. They must spend the funding before 31 July 2025 so it can be accounted for in the PE and sport premium digital reporting form.
Digital reporting form
From July 2025, all schools must complete the digital reporting form. The digital form outlines how the school has used its PE and sport premium and the impact it has had on achieving the aims and objectives of the funding.
The digital form contains a series of questions and free text boxes. Schools can enter details on how the PE and sport premium has been used to make improvements in the 5 key areas highlighted in this guidance. It can also be used to generate the necessary online report. The information gathered includes:
- figures on the overall spend
- what the funding has been spent on
- whether there is any unspent funding
- swimming and water safety attainment
The digital form will go live during May or June 2025, and will remain open until 31 July 2025.
DfE will provide separate guidance to support schools with the completion of the digital form. The link to the form and supporting guidance will be shared with schools by late June 2025. To allow for comparisons to be made, when publishing the digital form download, schools should retain the previous year’s written report on the school’s website.
Online report
As part of the conditions of grant, by 31 July 2025, a school must publish on its website a report detailing how it has spent its PE and sport premium funding allocation. If a school chooses to download a copy of its digital form return and use this as its published report, it must ensure that the form is converted to HTML format to meet accessibility requirements.
The published report must include:
- the amount of premium funding received
- a full breakdown of how it has been spent
- the impact seen by the school on pupils’ participation and attainment in PE and sport
- how this improvement will be sustained
The report must also contain details on the percentage of pupils in year 6 who have 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
In the case of a MAT, which may include several primary schools, and the PE and sport premium funding may be pooled, this does not remove the requirement for each individual school to publish details of how it has spent its PE and sport premium funding allocation. The MAT cannot publish a single document to cover all schools, nor will the digital tool allow for a MAT to complete one form for all schools.
PE funding evaluation form
To help schools plan and monitor the impact of the PE and sport premium spending, partners in the PE and school sport sector have developed a PE funding evaluation form. This can be found on the Association for PE (afPE) and Youth Sport Trust websites. Schools may find it helpful to use this to plan and record how they use the PE and sport premium throughout the year in readiness of completing the digital reporting tool at the end of the school year.
Monitoring of PE and sport premium spending
If a published report indicates concerns or discrepancies in spend of the PE and sport premium in relation to the conditions of grant and requirements in the guidance, the department may take appropriate and proportionate action. This may include action to recover funding.
Swimming and water safety data collection
While this data collection is not a requirement of the PE and sport premium conditions of grant, we acknowledge that schools may use PE and sport premium to improve swimming and water safety attainment, either through teacher training opportunities or through top-up swimming and water safety lessons.
The national curriculum outlines that schools must provide swimming and water safety in key stage 1 or key stage 2. Pupils must 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 safe self-rescue in different water-based situations
Due to this national curriculum expectation and given that the PE and sport premium can be used to boost swimming and water safety attainment, we will continue to require schools to provide data on the percentage of pupils within its year 6 cohort in the 2024 to 2025 academic year who met the national curriculum swimming and water safety requirements. This data will be collected through the PE and sport premium digital form.
Schools should provide attainment data for year 6 pupils from their most recent swimming and water safety lessons. This may be data from previous years, depending on the swimming and water safety programme at the school. Schools must keep attainment data from swimming and water safety lessons in years 3 to 5 to be able to report this accurately in year 6.
Further guidance and support
You can get further guidance at:
- Association for PE – advice on the PE and sport premium, PE Funding Evaluation Form and Safe Practice in Physical Education and School Sport and Physical Activity
- National Governance Association guidance – use of the PE and sport premium and how governing boards can influence and support the planning and delivery of PE, as well as physical activity and sport, and monitor the impact
- Sport England – advice on using the PE and sport premium effectively
- Swim England – advice and resources on primary school swimming and water safety
- The Black Swimming Association – advice on understanding and addressing barriers that limit communities of African, Caribbean, and Asian heritage from engaging in aquatics and water safety
- The Inclusive Education Hub – an online platform of resources to help schools make PE and sport more inclusive
- Youth Sport Trust – advice on the PE and sport premium and PE evaluation Form
Other helpful guidance documents are:
- Keeping children safe in education - statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment
- Keeping children safe in out-of-school settings - information for providers, parents and carers on keeping children safe in community activities, after school clubs, tuition, sports training and other out of school settings
Updates to this page
Last updated 9 October 2024 + show all updates
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Updated the page for the 2024 to 2025 academic year and added 'Examples of effective PE and sport premium spending' to the 'Effective ways to spend the premium ' section.
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Updated the payment dates for 2023 to 2024. Added the link to the 2023 to 2024 conditions of grant.
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Updated the section on academies and free schools to remove mentions of city technology colleges. Clarified that the funding must not be used for capital expenditure except for goods within the de minimis value for purchases set by the school.
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Updated the guidance for the academic year 2023 to 2024. This shows schools how to use the funding more effectively and highlights the importance of sustainability and equal access for all pupils. It confirms that schools must spend the funding in the academic year it has been allocated for. There is also a new section on the upcoming digital tool.
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Updated to include revised payment dates for 2022 to 2023 and provide clarification on sustainable improvements and what capital expenditure includes.
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Updated the information about carried forward unspent PE and sport premium grant funding, added the payment dates for 2021 to 2022 and a link to the conditions of grant.
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Updated to confirm continuation of the PE and sport premium for the 2021 to 2022 academic year. Also updated to reflect the announcement that schools can carry forward unspent PE and sport premium funding into the 2021 to 2022 academic year.
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Updated information about any PE and sport premium carried forward from the 2019 to 2020 academic year. The deadline to spend carried forward funding is now the end of the 2020 to 2021 academic year.
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Updated sections relating to coronavirus (COVID-19), accountability and how to use funding.
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Added link to details for the 2020 to 2021 academic year, including conditions of grant (not 2021 to 2022 as appeared in error on previous change note)
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Includes link to the Conditions of Grant for 2021 to 2022
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Added section 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) update'.
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We have added a link to the published allocations and conditions of grant for 2019 to 2020.
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Updated for the 2019 to 2020 academic year.
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We have confirmed that the £320 million PE and Sport Premium will continue in the 2019 to 2020 academic year.
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Corrected allocation date: new academies, free schools, and CTCs will receive seven-twelfths of their 2018 to 2019 allocation on 1 March 2019.
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Information on the 2018 to 2019 funding amounts and when schools will receive payments.
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Updated for the academic year 2017 to 2018.
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Added details about funding for 2017 to 2018.
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Updated information for the 2016 to 2017 academic year.
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Added link to allocations data for the 2015 to 2016 academic year.
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Updated information for the 2015 to 2016 academic year.
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Added links to Sports Coach UK's coaching portal and to a series of short films about the PE and sport premium.
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Added a link to the County Sports Partnerships (CSP) Network website where schools can find contact details for their local CSP.
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Added the breakdown of funding for the academic year 2014 to 2015, including conditions of grant.
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First published.