Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that all schools provide opportunities for students to undertake dance classes.

The government wants all pupils to be healthy and active. A positive experience of sport and physical activity at a young age can create a lifelong habit of participation.

Physical education (PE) is a foundation subject at all four key stages, and it is a vital part of a broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils to access. Dance features specifically in the content of the PE national curriculum at key stages 1 to 3. The PE curriculum is designed to ensure that all pupils develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities, are physically active for sustained periods of time and lead healthy and active lives.

Schools are free to decide how to offer dance as part of an ambitious PE curriculum, and what extra-curricular activity they provide for their pupils.

Through the primary PE and sport premium, the government has invested over £2 billion of ring-fenced funding to primary schools to improve PE and sport since 2013. The premium should be used by schools to make additional and sustainable improvements, and schools are able to use this to enhance their dance offer.

In addition, the department’s Opening School Facilities programme supports schools to increase their extra-curricular offer by encouraging them to open their facilities beyond their usual operating hours. This means schools can provide more opportunities to young people to become physically active, including through dance.