Education CommitteeFurther written evidence submitted by the Department for Education

During the hearing there were a few points on which I promised to write with further information.

In discussion about the number of schools currently registered for the School Games (Q243), I said that there were “more than 17,000”. I can now confirm that, as at 3 June 2013, 17,122 schools had registered for the School Games. Of these, 13,565 have actually activated their registration and currently have live accounts on the monitoring system. You also enquired about the funding for the School Games. The total public funding supporting the School Games totals £65.9 million up to March 2015. This sum includes £35.5 million of National Lottery funding through Sport England, a further £22 million from Sport England and the Department for Health for School Games Organisers, £2 million from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and £6.4 million from the Department for Health through Change4Life Clubs. In addition, the funding that we provided through the PE teacher release scheme could support the involvement of both primary and secondary schools in the School Games.

You will recall that we had a brief discussion about the nature and extent of sports satellite clubs (Q229). I understand that there are currently 450 sport satellite clubs in operation. Many of these projects are still in development so we do not yet have any evaluation data available. Satellite Clubs are extensions or outposts of community sports clubs which are established in a new venue, usually a secondary school or college. Delivered by coaches and volunteers from the community sports club, they provide a valuable stepping stone to ensure more young people transition from school to community sport.

Mr Skidmore referred to Mr Diaper’s comment in one of the earlier evidence sessions to the effect that sport satellite clubs were often little more than “a poster on a noticeboard”. I have checked with Mr Diaper who confirms that his remark was a reference to the limitations of what a traditional school to club link has sometimes been in the past. The satellite clubs which his organisation is establishing seek to take a far more innovative approach whereby a sports club or clubs locate an outpost on a school site.

Between now and 2017 the Govemment plans to invest £49 million in satellite clubs, made up as follows:

£20 million through 25 different sports (including football and athletics which will deliver 2,000 and 1,000 satellite clubs respectively) and including boxing and handball which will deliver 54 and 100 respectively.

Each sport will report against targets on the number of satellite clubs established and the number of participants attending them.

£21 million targeted at local satellite club delivery, with schools able to secure local funding to set up satellite clubs.

£8 million to employ a network of Club Link Makers (with at least one in every County Sports Partnership) who will work with schools and national governing bodies to set up the clubs locally.

We did agree that a key concem has been the lack of appropriate expertise for the teaching of sport among primary teachers. The Government does not prescribe the specific content of Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses, nor set out requirements for any particular amount of time to be spent on any element of the content. Instead, we expect providers to ensure that their programmes allow all trainees to achieve Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) by demonstrating that they meet the Teachers’ Standards. All aspects of ITT provision are inspected by Ofsted.

Another issue that the Committee raised, and on which I share their concerns, was the point raised by Baroness Grey-Thompson that children with disabilities were often expected to go to the library rather than participate in PE lessons. In the debate of the Children and Families Bill later that same day we also discussed how we can include information on access to school sport and activities outside of the classroom for children and young people with a disability in the new SEN Code of Practice. I have asked officials to look at how this information might be included in the section on the Local Offer and how we can make links to the existing equalities legislation.

I do recognise the Committee’s concems, expressed at Q252, that some headteachers may find themselves deluged by calls from coaches offering their services, and as such it might be difficult for them to distinguish between canvassers offering high quality provision and those plugging services of lesser worth. As I advised the Committee during the hearing, we have now published (28 June) a large package of information for primary school headteachers to support their decisions about how they might most effectively spend their additional funding from September 2013 onwards. This material includes:

a selection of case studies from schools with a proven track record of effective provision of PE and sport;

information about the packages of support on offer from sporting organisations such as Sport England, the Youth Sport Trust and the Association for Physical Education (afPE);

information from the national goveming bodies about their own offers of support for schools, and other sources of quality assured resources; and

evidence, drawn from Ofsted and other sources, of effective practice in the provision of PE and sport.

This material is available on the Department’s website via the following link:

https://www.education.gov.uklschools/adminandfinance/financialmanagementlprir

July 2013