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Prime Minister Announces Massive Boost For School Sport

166/04  The Government is today unveiling a half-billion pound boost for PE and sport in our schools - to give all children access to at least four hours of it each week by the end of the decade.

All pupils in schools in England will be doing a minimum of two hours PE and sport at school by 2010 – and now facilities and staffing will be put in place to give young people the chance to take part in a further two to three hours of sport outside school hours.

The funding will pay for the completion of the network of 400 specialist sports colleges and school sport partnerships, as well as bringing new coaching expertise into schools, developing a fresh generation of gifted athletes and ensuring all children can learn to swim.

The new boost for sport was being announced today (Tuesday) by Tony Blair at a South London secondary school which is spearheading the Government's drive to improve the health and well-being of our children and young people.

The Prime Minister said:

"This investment will give today's children new opportunities to take part in sport - inside and outside the school gate and before, during and after the school day. 

"Sport is not only important for its own sake.  It teaches kids how to win and lose and how to be part of a team.  It is also important in tackling obesity in young people and can act as an antidote for anti-social behaviour by channelling their energies."

The Prime Minister was visiting Waverley School in Southwark, one of only seven all-girl sports colleges in the country, along with Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Schools Minister Stephen Twigg.

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Waverley leads a school sport partnership, the innovation which brings local primary and secondary schools together to improve sports provision and drive forward increases in participation in PE and sport. All its 850 pupils already get two hours PE and sport at school each week – four years ahead of a Government target for 85 per cent of 5-16 year-olds nationally to achieve that figure.
  
In 2002 ministers announced an investment of £459m to deliver the Government's school sports strategy up to 2006.

Today's announcement injects a further £519m of Treasury funding from 2006-07 to 2007-08. Among improvements it will pay for are:

  • Completing the network of 400 sports colleges and 400 school sport partnerships and maintaining them (£361m)
  • Improving the quality of coaching provision and bringing in more outside coaches to work in schools (£43.5m)
  • Enhancing community sports clubs and improving their links with schools (£49m
  • Training and developing PE and sports teachers' skills (£11.6m)
  • Increasing volunteering and sports leadership opportunities for teenagers (£8m
  • Employing new competition managers with responsibility for school-based festivals through to national matches and events (£6.75m)

This new spending means that in the five years up to 2008, investment in PE and school sport, including lottery funding, will total over £1.5bn.

Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, welcomed the spending: 

"After the years of decline we inherited, school sport is on the up again. This investment will mean that we hit our targets for increasing participation for all and that we'll be able to provide the competitive framework for the stars of this generation to perform at the highest level – making them ready, we hope, to shine at a London Olympics in 2012."

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Education Secretary Charles Clarke said:

"Waverley has placed PE and sport at the very heart of what it does, with impressive new facilities.  Many of its pupils actually do more than two hours sport each week in school time and teachers have seen how it has improved their school and boosted the young people's self-esteem and behaviour."

The Government first set targets for increasing the proportion of children who spend a minimum of two hours a week on PE and school sport – within and beyond the curriculum – in 2002.

It challenged pupils, teachers, schools and parents to work together to increase the figure from 25 per cent then to 75 per cent in 2006 – an objective that was increased to 85 per cent by 2008.

The first survey of 6,500 schools in partnerships, carried out earlier this year, showed that 62 per cent of pupils were getting two hours sport and PE a week – and revealed sharpest increases among pioneering schools that had been in partnerships the longest.


Notes to Editors

 

1. Waverley School became a Sports College and the hub of its local school sport partnership in September 2004, with a new sports hall opening the same month. Sports and activities available include athletics, netball, badminton, tennis, cricket, football, dance and scuba diving – the only state school in the country to offer it. The school is located at Homestall Road, London SE22 0NR

2. There are 12,000 primary, secondary and special schools in England in 313 school sport partnerships, serving 3.5m children. These are built around a hub school  - usually a sports college. These families of schools receive extra funding – around £270,000 a year – to increase opportunities in sport. All schools will be in a partnership by 2006.

3. The first survey of partnership schools found that 62 per cent of pupils were spending two hours in a typical week on PE and sport. Those schools longest in a partnership recorded the greatest take-up of sport – 68 per cent, against 50 per cent in new member schools. The full report is available from http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/pe. A new survey is being carried out later this year. 

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