Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many primary schools are engaged in Primary School Sport Partnerships.

The Department for Education does not collect information on the number of school sport partnerships in each local authority. Schools are free to work in partnership with each other to deliver PE and sport for their pupils.

The government has committed to continuing to support primary school sport with £150 million a year, paid directly to headteachers, until 2020. This builds on the funding that we provided since 2010 to improve the quality of PE and sport provision.

Our vision is for a measurable and sustained improvement in school PE and sport, underpinned by high-quality teaching that increases participation levels in physical activity, and leads to healthier pupils who are more engaged across the whole curriculum. In order to achieve this we have given schools the autonomy to make decisions on how they spend the primary PE and sport premium that will secure sustainable benefits for schools. The primary PE and sport premium is given directly to primary schools to spend on what they think will most benefit their pupils.

We know from the interim findings of our independent research of the Primary PE and sport premium that it is having a positive impact on PE and school sport. A research brief was published in September 2014 and can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pe-and-sport-premium-an-investigation-in-primary-schools.

The final report will be published in the autumn. Since the funding was introduced, time spent on curricular PE at primary level has increased by 13 minutes from 109 to 122 minutes, from 2012/13 to 2013/14. 91% of schools reported an increase in the quality of PE teaching thanks to the funding and 96% of schools reported improvements in pupils’ physical fitness. Schools reported wider improvements in behaviour, healthier lifestyles for their pupils, increased pupil engagement with PE during school time and an increase in participation in after school clubs. A third of schools used the premium to reduce the costs of after school clubs, while a fifth made some clubs completely free to attend.