Guidance

PE and sport premium 2023 to 2024 digital form guidance

Published 26 June 2024

Applies to England

Introduction

Schools must use the PE and sport premium to make additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity they provide, in accordance with the terms outlined in the conditions of grant and PE and sport premium guidance. This means schools may 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 

This guidance should help you complete your PE and sport premium grant funding assurance form. If you need more help with completing your returns, contact us via the customer help portal

When to complete your submission  

The deadline for submitting the PE and sport premium grant funding assurance form is 5pm on Wednesday, 31 July 2024.

Accessing the form

Please read the sections below before accessing the PE and sport grant spending assurance digital form.

Before you start

Make sure that you:  

• have a DfE Sign-in account that is linked to your organisation. You need to have an account with the DfE sign-in service. If you have not used DfE sign-in before you’ll need to create an account
• have relevant details on your school’s PE and sport premium allocation amount  
• have relevant information regarding any potential PE and sport premium underspend 
• have relevant information to be able to provide a breakdown of how your school has spent its PE and sport premium funding 
• have relevant information to outline whether your school has prioritised any funding to support disadvantaged children, girls or children with SEND and / or long-term medical conditions 
• have detail on the measurable impact that the school has seen on pupils’ PE attainment, physical activity and sport participation due to the use of PE and sport premium funding 
• have detail on how you have used your PE and sport premium funding to make sustainable improvements 

DfE Sign-in 

Sign in to  your DfE Sign-in account

Follow the below steps to access the form via your DfE Sign-in account: 

1.  Access the online form and when prompted, enter your DfE Sign-in credentials (your username and password) for authentication 
2. Choose the organisation that you are completing the form for – this is only required if you are linked to several organisations 
3. The next page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed in. This will show the name, address and unique identifier of the local authority, as well as the name and email address of the person who signed into DfE Sign-in 
4. If these details are correct, then all you need do is to select ‘Continue’ to go to the next page 
5. If you believe these details are incorrect, please contact us via the customer help portal and we will investigate. You can still proceed with your submission 
6. Complete the form as instructed in the following sections 

To complete your form, your account must be connected to the organisation you are completing the form for. You do not need to add any services in DfE sign-in; it is used only for authentication.

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined  below to complete the form. 

 You might have noticed the term ‘approver’ when creating your account. An approver is someone at your organisation responsible for controlling who has access to DfE Sign-in and the services within the system. It is usually a senior person, such as an administrator or a manager. 

 For security reasons, you will need the approval of one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form. 

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account  

You will need to create one by following steps 1 to 5 below:  

1. Select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’ the DfE Sign-in page 

2. Enter your name and email address (use a valid business email address that contains your name) 

3. We will send you an email to verify your email address; copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page 

4. Create a memorable password that must be at least 14 characters 

5. Sign in using your new credentials, and request access to the organisation for which you would like to submit the form. Your request will be sent to the approver(s) at your organisation for action 

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined under already have a DfE account to complete the form. 

You might have noticed the term ‘approver’ when creating your account. An approver is someone at your organisation responsible for controlling who has access to DfE Sign-in and the services within the system. It is usually a senior person, such as an administrator or a manager. 

For security reasons, you will need the approval of one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form.

If you need further assistance 

If you need help with DfE Sign-in, use our DfE Sign-in help service. You will be able to request further assistance if required. When raising a support request, select ‘other.’  

 If you have problems accessing the form, please contact us via the customer help portal.

Completing the form 

When authenticated through DfE sign-in, you will find a ‘save and continue’ button on each page of the form. 

If you have to sign out of the form or your form is opened for an extended period before submitting it, you can resume your submission when you sign back in. 

Selecting ‘save and continue’ on each page will  take you through the form. 

Your details

This page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed into your DfE Sign-in.  

Your school type 

Once signed into the form, you will see the options to select a type of school. You will only be able to choose one option to continue with your submission.

Your school’s PE and sport premium funding

You need to enter the amount of PE and sport premium funding received for the current 2023 to 2024 academic year (including the amount of any PE and sport premium funding that you’ve carried forward from the 2022 to 2023 academic year) and the amount of funding that has not been spent 

If your answer to any of these questions is none, please enter zero (0) into the box. 

How has your school spent its PE and sport premium funding 

Please provide a full breakdown of how your school has spent its PE and sport premium funding. We have broken it down across a series of categories to assist you further. 

 Where your school has spent money on a certain category, please select the appropriate tick box for that category from the list provided. You can select as many categories as are relevant. You will then be taken to an individual page for each category selected, where you can enter the value of the spend into the appropriate box.  

 If your school spent funding in any other area not already covered in the series of categories, please briefly describe in ‘Other’ category and add spending value using the ‘Value’ box. 

Targeted areas your school spent funding on

You will be presented with a number of pages asking you about the funding spent by your school during the current 2023 to 2024 academic year on providing or improving sport and physical activity opportunities for pupils. This section will ask whether your school has prioritised any funding to provide or improve sport opportunities for: 

• children with special educational needs and disabilities, including children with long-term medical conditions 
• girls 
• disadvantaged pupils 

 Select ‘No’ and continue with your submission for those that don’t apply to your school.  

The impact of PE and sport premium funding 

You will be presented with a number of pages asking you about the impact that  PE and sport premium funding has had on PE on pupils’ PE attainment, physical activity and sport participation in the 2023 to 2024 academic year. 

 This will include a question about the 5 key areas for improvement where funding should be prioritised. Select all that apply. 

Achieving sustainable outcomes 

In this section you will be asked to describe how your school is going to ensure that the improvements made through its spending of the PE and sport premium are sustainable and will benefit pupils joining in future years. 

Your answer cannot exceed 255 characters.

Meeting requirements for swimming and water safety

Enter your answers in percentage  

You answer must be a number between zero (0) and 100

Declarations page

Once you have completed your submission, you must agree to the mandatory declarations below 

• the information contained in this PE and sport premium assurance return is accurate and has been signed-off by the headteacher and the chair of governors or trustees 
• the reported spending detailed within this return will be published on our school’s website 
• you are authorised to submit this PE and sport premium assurance return on behalf of your school 

You will not be able to submit your form without fully completing this page.

Feedback

Following the declaration page, you will be asked to complete some feedback questions. The answers to these questions will assist the PE and sport premium team to make necessary improvements to the assurance form after the testing phase.

Submission summary 

You will be presented with a summary page that will allow you to check all your answers before submitting your form.  

 If you would like to change any answers, use the ‘change’ link that appears next to each data entry.

Select ‘save summary as PDF’ button. There will still be an expectation for schools to publish information on their PE and sport premium spending on their school website. We would recommend that schools upload this PDF to their school website, providing a breakdown of the information you have entered in the form, thus ensuring transparency of spend. You should do this before clicking the ‘Submit’ button. 

Confirmation  

 The final page confirms your submission and will provide a unique reference number.

Make a note of your unique reference number as this information will not be included in the confirmation email.

Amending your submission 

 If your submission is incorrect, you can resubmit your form up until 5pm on 31 July 2024  when this form window closes for submissions. To do this, you will need to log in and resubmit your form. 

 Forms can be submitted or resubmitted until the deadline by selecting the link to the PE and sport premium assurance form. It will not be possible to grant any extensions to the deadline. 

If you make a second submission, we will take the details of the most recently submitted form and disregard previous versions. You will receive a new unique submission reference for an amended submission. 

Enquiries  

If you have any technical issues related to this digital form, please raise an enquiry  via our customer help portal.