PE and Sport Premium

The PE and Sports Premium grant – what is it? What do we do with it

and what is the impact?

PE and Sports Premium is an amount of money awarded to all Primary Schools to help improve the quality of the PE and sports activities offered to and available to their pupils. Whilst schools can choose what to spend their PE and Sports Premium money on, it can’t be spent on anything else other than for enhancing PE and Sport in order that the health and wellbeing of all pupils is enhanced.

Both owing to changes in the way the grant is calculated and allocated, St Paul’s will receive a grant of approx. £15,500 for the financial year 2017-2018. This is quite an increase on the previous year’s figure of £9,120.

How we spend the money.

With St Paul’s being a relatively new building with many fine resources and space, we decided that the most effective use of the funding would be to employ a ‘sports coach’ to work alongside the teaching team, in particular with Miss Stansfield our PE subject leader. This already costs more than the Pupil Premium Grant (in previous years twice as much as the grant) yet we feel the benefits received by every child in school are well worth the costs

As part of our staff team we employ Mr Ashraf who is a sports coach.  Employing a sports coach of our own means that Mr Ashraf benefits from being a member of the school staff with regard to continual professional development and by being involved in all aspects of school life. We think this provides a better ‘deal’ than simply buying in a sports organisation or third party provider.  As well as delivering sports and PE lessons, Mr Ashraf delivers extracurricular sports clubs and also is the 'lead' in organising our involvement in inter school sports competitions such as football, cricket, handball and netball, etc.

How else do we spend the PE and Sports Premium Grant.

The whole of our funding and more besides goes towards the provision of our sports coach. However, because we believe that all children (as well as adults) would benefit from more physical activity we continue to allocate more funding to initiatives other than normal curriculum PE provision. We have again renewed our membership of the Pendle School Sports Partnership through the Pendle Leisure Trust (PLT). Where practicable and suitable, this provides additional input for pupils in Years 1-6, such as netball, football, cricket, cycling, running, Tag Rugby, handball, swimming and multi sports. As mentioned above children have the opportunity to enter inter-school tournaments, compete in leagues and to enjoy participating in festivals.

Sport with learning.

On an annual basis we continue to have the Soccer 7 Sport Company in school who deliver Literacy, Numeracy and in autumn 2018 ‘Science initiatives’ through practical sport activities. This engages all children but is particularly helpful in engaging the less sporty by involving them in exciting aspects of the ‘core’ curriculum.  Not only is it very enjoyable but the children are well engaged throughout both physically and mentally.

As part of the Commonwealth celebrations in April 2018 we are being visited by a ‘sports dance teacher’ on Commonwealth Day and who will, throughout the day teach each class a separate dance reflecting traditional aspects of a variety of Commonwealth Nations.  The day will begin with an opening ceremony and end with a closing ceremony incorporating the dances learned.

Activity week. Each year we organise an activity week linked wherever possible to a major sporting event such as the Olympic Games.  Activity week in 2018 will be ‘World Cup Week’ and will again involve outside companies delivering activities that enhance the popularity and engagement of sport and PE.

Sports day is held during Activity Week and we ensure that this involves ‘real’ sports and not activities such as filling basins with water from plastic cups etc. We believe that healthy competition is exactly that and that whilst taking part is one thing, making every effort to win is even better.

Burnley Football Club spend time in school each year both during the day and after school delivering sports – primarily through football but also including aspects of general fitness.

All these initiatives / activities cost money – a lot more throughout the year than the Pupil Sports Premium could provide for.   However, The grant does enable us to deliver high quality coaching as well as all the other additional things mentioned above.

We recognise the importance of sport being accessible to all; and all children, regardless of Special Educational Need or disability are wherever possible given access to the same range of sports or sporting activities - swimming in particular is given a high priority with all year 3 children and year 5 children  benefitting from swimming lessons - more than would normally be expected as part of the PE curriculum.

IMPACT

Last year was a successful year for sport at St Paul’s with the following:

• An encouraging number of pupils engaged with extracurricular sport (football, archery, basketball, netball, cross country, multisport, cricket, athletics, circuit training, handball and Bikeability)
• Increased provision of extracurricular sport activities to cater for the above.
• Wider participation in competitive sporting opportunities through the Pendle Leisure Trust (PLT).
• As a response to the governments concerns over child obesity, levels of type 2 diabetes and general low levels of fitness, all KS2 children undertake a mile run at least once per week as part of the PE curriculum.
• Children are developing a healthier outlook on their everyday life which includes an acknowledgement that physical activity is not only good for them but also really enjoyable at the same time.

So whilst our PE and Sports grant is more than well spent, we believe the impact, both physical and psychological is well worth it and are committed to spending more than the PE and Sports Grant provides for.

How will we maintain and sustain these improvements?

The PE and Sports Grant is not a guaranteed form of income and schools have never known if it would continue further than one or two years into the future – indeed, with school funding already being the grant at any time could be withdrawn or scaled down. However, the current situation of the grant almost doubling is very welcome, especially as we believe it is essential that we maintain and sustain the current high standard of provision and attainment in PE. We would therefore endeavour to continue offering all that we currently offer although we acknowledge that without the PE and Sports Grant this would be difficult.

As well as a detailed ‘action plan’ which evaluates the impact of what we use our grant for as well as highlighting new initiatives such as ‘wake and shake’ spots at Breakfast Club, we are hoping to increase the frequency of the ‘mile run’ in KS2 and continue to examine the possibility of installing a ‘pump bike’ track within school grounds. Existing good practice and involvement with the membership to the Pendle School Sports Partnership (PLT) will be continued / renewed and is paramount to maintaining the children’s enthusiasm and drive for physical education.

One thing we believe that money can’t buy is the passion that staff themselves have for physical activity. Our Headteacher travels to school on his bicycle and other staff engage with initiatives such as ‘couch to 5k’, sponsored runs to support cancer charities (parents are involved too) as well as marathon / half marathon running, teaching gymnastics outside school like our PE subject leader and many other passions – all of which are enthusiastically communicated and reinvested into the children as being fun and ‘worth it’. Many of our children are involved in sporting / physical activities outside school – all of which are celebrated during our ‘achievement assembly at the end of each week’.