Newsletters

PE funding evaluation form 

To help schools plan and monitor the impact of the PE and sport premium spending, partners in the PE and school sport sector have developed a PE funding evaluation form. This can be found on the Association for PE (afPE)  and Youth Sport Trust  websites. Schools may find it helpful to use this to plan and record how they use the PE and sport premium throughout the year in readiness of completing the digital reporting tool at the end of the school year.  

Digital mandatory reporting will open from beginning of June 2025 - 31st July 2025.

Examples of effective PE and sport premium spending (PDF, 111 KB, 4 pages)] to help understand ways this can be implemented.

Full guidance can be found HERE

Feedback from School Swimming Group 

The Plymouth School Swimming Group met last week with representatives from the PSSP, Plymouth City County, Plymouth Active and the National Marine Park.

We thought it would be good to remind schools of why we recommend that they bring Year 4 to school swimming lessons:

• Physical Readiness - Ensuring children have the physical ability to participate in swim lessons. They should have sufficient motor skills to perform basic movements like kicking and arm strokes.
• Emotional Maturity – Children often become water phobic around this age so it is important for non-swimmers to experience school swimming before this sets in.

The additional benefit of bringing Year 4 students is that if they are unable to attain the National Curriculum targets, they are able to repeat the programme again when they are in Year 5. 

Government guidelines to make school runs happier, healthier and greener 

New guidance will help to design activity into our neighbourhoods and reduce congestion on the roads during school run times.

Millions more school runs across the country can now be transformed to be healthier, safer, greener and more active, thanks to new government guidelines published today (19 November 2024).

The guidance, published by Active Travel England and the Department for Transport, outlines how councils can better deliver school street schemes, so that they work best for pupils and staff as well as local businesses and residents.

A School Street temporarily only allows motor traffic with a permit outside the school gates at pick up and drop off times. This creates a safer space for children and their families to walk, wheel, cycle or scoot to school, bringing a wealth of benefits to both school pupils and residents, including:

• improved physical and mental health for schoolchildren
• reduced cases of dangerous driving, parking and turning outside schools during school run times
• more children staying active by walking, wheeling or cycling to school, which in turn reduces traffic in the local area during school drop off and pick up
• more opportunities for social interactions on the way to school, and more independence for older pupils
• reduction in emissions around schools

There are already hundreds of School Streets funded across the country, including more than 180 funded by the government’s Active Travel Fund.

Today’s guidance also cites research and evidence from the Road Safety Trust, which shows these schemes increase active travel on the school run, are supported by most parents and residents in the nearby community, and do not cause significant road safety issues through traffic displacement.

It comes after recent research commissioned by ATE found that 85% of people in England support active travel and would like to do more, while data from charity Sustrans has previously found that 4 out of 5 children want to walk or cycle to school.

Read more on the new guidance here.