Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the total number of hours that school students have been taught PE in (a) primary school and (b) secondary school for each year since 2010.

Information on the number of hours taught for each subject is collected from state funded secondary schools as part of the annual School Workforce Census each November. Information is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

The number of hours spent teaching physical education in a typical week from 2011/12 to 2021/22 (full time period available), is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/276d8355-0aeb-4b80-7c2c-08db63adc612. Similar data for 2010 is not available, but data related to 2010 is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2010-provisional.

Timetabled teaching is reported for a typical week in November, as determined by the school. It does not cover an entire year of teaching. If there are variations in timetabling across the year, this is not covered in the data available to the Department.

The subjects taught are only collected from secondary schools that use electronic timetabling software that can produce data in the format required. Data is then weighted to provide national totals.

Information on the number of hours taught for each subject is not collected from primary schools.