Sir Mo Farah and British Sporting Icons Call on Government to Initiate a New National Plan to Get Kids Moving. 

On World Children’s Day, Sir Mo Farah personally delivered a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, signed by Hannah Cockroft, Adam Peaty, Max Whitlock, Keely Hodgkinson and other Team GB Olympians and Paralympians.

The multi-Olympic, World and European champion has united leading figures from British sport to support his call for change. Co-signatories include seven-time Paralympic Champion and Youth Sport Trust Champion Hannah Cockroft OBE, triple Olympic champions Max Whitlock OBE and Adam Peaty OBE, the most successful British Paralympian of all time, Dame Sarah Storey, and Paris 2024 800m gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson.

Their intervention comes at a crucial time, as only 19% of children aged 1-5 and 47% of 5–18-year-olds are meeting the recommended daily levels of physical activity. The sporting icons are using World Children’s Day, which emphasises fundamental rights for children including health and play, to lay down a marker and call for change.

In the letter, the athletes state: “In the UK, far too many children are unable to access these rights through no fault of their own. Whether it’s the mental health crisis, rising obesity levels, increasing loneliness, or excessive exposure to screens and digital trauma, this generation risks failing to achieve their full potential. Now is the time to put children first.”

The athletes are calling for the Government’s new national plan to deliver change by:

• Ensuring early years providers support physical development so all children are healthy movers before starting school.
• Delivering greater physical activity in schools, including increased access to sport.
• Targeting activities towards those whose participation is hindered by systemic barriers.

Speaking on behalf of the letter's signatories, Sir Mo Farah stated: “While we compete in different events, we are united in our belief that, beyond the sporting field, our legacy should ensure every child in the UK has an active start in life. By encouraging more children to be active from their early years and throughout childhood, we can break down barriers to opportunity and create the healthiest and happiest generation of children ever in Britain.”

The Youth Sport Trust, the leading UK children’s charity for improving young people's health and wellbeing through sport and play, have released a new film to accompany the letter. The film aims to highlight how a lack of movement in childhood can have lasting impacts on a child’s health, including their brain development.

The full list of athlete signatories on the letter includes:

• Sir Mo Farah
• Georgia Bell
• Hannah Cockroft OBE
• Keely Hodgkinson
• Nathan Maguire
• Adam Peaty OBE
• Dame Sarah Storey
• Max Whitlock OBE
• Bianca Williams

A full copy of the letter delivered to No10 by Sir Mo Farah can be downloaded here.

Using the PE and sport premium

Any use of the PE and sport premium must be in accordance with the terms outlined in the conditions of grant document. This means schools must use the PE and sport premium to:

• build capacity and capability in the school and make sure that improvements made to the quality of PE, sport and physical activity provision now are sustainable and will benefit pupils joining the school in future
• develop or add to the PE, sport and physical activity that the school provides

Effective ways to spend the premium  

It is important that schools make the most effective use of the premium. To best achieve this, spending should focus on making improvements in 5 key areas, to assist in:  

• increasing confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sporting activities
• increasing engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity and sporting activities
• raising the profile of PE and sport across the school, to support whole school improvement
• offer a broader and more equal experience of a range of sports and physical activities to all pupils
• increasing participation in competitive sport

These may be achieved by: 

• embedding physical activity into the school day by encouraging active travel to and from school and having active break times
• providing targeted activities or support to involve and encourage the least active children
• helping to provide equal access for all pupils to the range of sports and physical activities that the school offers
• providing continued professional development (CPD) for all staff (as outlined previously)
• providing extra-curricular opportunities for children to enable them to access other sporting activities or specialist sport instruction
• providing top-up swimming and water safety lessons for those pupils that do not meet national curriculum requirements after they have completed core swimming and water safety lessons
• providing specialist support to help children with additional needs to access and participate fully in PE lessons
• entering local school competitions and holding inter-house competitions in the school to encourage participation

We’ve collated real-life working Examples of effective PE and sport premium spending (PDF, 111 KB, 4 pages)] to help understand ways this can be implemented.