Guidance

PE and sport premium guidance for primary schools

Updated 6 October 2025

Applies to England

What the PE and sport premium is for

You should use the PE and sport premium funding to:

• support all children and young people to live healthy, active lives
• make participation in PE and school sport easier
• make sure all children can achieve and thrive through increased physical activity and sport, no matter their background or ability
• improve children’s health, wellbeing, personal development and academic attainment
• embed the foundations of positive and enjoyable participation in regular physical activity.

The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend:

• children and young people should take part in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes every day
• disabled children and young people should take part in 20 minutes of physical activity per day

You should aim to provide:

• high-quality PE and sport for at least 2 hours a week
• a wide range of extracurricular sport and competitive opportunities

You must not use this funding for activities within the core curriculum.

Eligibility

Most schools with primary-age pupils receive the PE and sport premium. The exceptions are:

• nursery schools
• university technical colleges
• independent schools, except non-maintained special schools

How we calculate funding and the amounts payable for 2025 to 2026

You get PE and sport premium funding based on the number of pupils you have in years 1 to 6. If you do not have set year groups (for example, in some special schools), pupils aged 5 to 10 attract the funding.

We use data from the January 2025 school census to calculate funding for most schools.

We use data from the autumn 2025 school census for:

• new schools
• schools teaching eligible pupils for the first time in the academic year 2025 to 2026

For the year 2025 to 2026:

• schools with 16 or fewer eligible pupils will get £1,000 per pupil
• schools with 17 or more eligible pupils will get £16,000 and an additional payment of £10 per pupil

Payment dates for 2025 to 2026

Maintained schools, including PRUs and hospital schools

Maintained schools, including pupil referral units (PRUs) and hospital schools, do not receive funding directly from DfE. We give the funding to the local authority, and they pass it on to the school.

We give local authorities PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. They will get:

• 50% of the funding allocation on 31 October 2025 – or 27 February 2026 if the school is new, or teaching eligible pupils for the first time
• 50% of the funding allocation on 30 April 2026

Academies and free schools

We send academies (including free schools) the PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. They will get:

• 50% of the funding allocation on 10 November 2025 – or 9 March 2026 if the school is new, or teaching eligible pupils for the first time
• 50% of the funding allocation on 11 May 2026

Each qualifying school in a multi-academy trust (MAT) will get a separate allocation of PE and sport premium grant funding.

Non-maintained special schools

We send non-maintained special schools the PE and sport premium funding in 2 separate payments. They will get:

• 50% of the funding allocation on 18 December 2025
• 50% of the funding allocation on 17 April 2026

What you can use the PE and sport premium for

You must use the PE and sport premium funding in accordance with the conditions of grant.

You must use the PE and sport premium funding to:

• build capacity and capability in the school, ensuring improvements to the quality of PE, sport and physical activity provision 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

If a MAT pools the funding between schools, you must use it to benefit the children in every qualifying school in the MAT.

Effective ways to spend the PE and sport premium  

You should focus on making improvements in 5 key areas:  

• increase all staff’s confidence, knowledge and skills in teaching PE and sporting activities
• increase all pupils’ engagement in regular physical activity and sporting activities
• raise 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, and ensure equal access to sport for boys and girls
• increase participation in competitive sport

To do this, you may: 

• provide continued professional development (CPD) for all staff
• embed physical activity into the school day, by encouraging active travel to and from school and having active break times
• provide targeted activities or support to involve and encourage the least active children
• help to provide equal access for all pupils to the range of sports and physical activities that the school offers
• provide extra-curricular opportunities for children to enable them to access other sporting activities or specialist sport instruction
• provide specialist support to help children with additional needs to access and participate fully in PE lessons
• enter local school competitions and hold inter-house competitions in the school to encourage participation

You may also provide top-up swimming and water safety lessons for pupils that do not meet national curriculum requirements, after they have completed core swimming and water safety lessons. This includes paying for:

• transport costs
• the cost of training a teacher to enable them to be able to deliver swimming and water safety lessons

We’ve collated examples of effective PE and sport premium spending to help understand ways this can be implemented.

Continuing professional development (CPD)

You should prioritise spending the PE and sport premium funding on CPD.

CPD is essential to help ensure that the quality of the teaching of high-quality PE, sport and physical activity in a school is sustainable.

This includes providing staff with:

• professional development
• mentoring and support
• appropriate training
• access to external resources

You can engage the expertise of external suitably qualified coaches to provide teachers with the confidence and skills to be able to deliver high-quality PE, sport and physical activities.  

You should use CPD providers who:

• are established
• are quality assured
• are suitably qualified
• have subject specific skills

Providers can work locally, regionally or nationally.

Monitor and assess the effectiveness of the CPD to make sure it is up to standard.

Every school has the autonomy to draft your own employment contracts. This may include specific expectations for your staff and teachers, for example:

• offering extra-curricular sporting activities
• supporting pupil competition outside core school hours

You can use PE and sport premium funding to pay for overtime if teaching staff are operating outside their teaching contract.

You may, for example:

• offer CPD for staff
• offer additional extra-curricular sporting activities and physical activities
• support pupils in competition

You will need to assess how overtime payments can lead to additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity you provide.

Any funding to cover teaching during the school day should come out of core school staffing budgets.  

Use of external coaches

You may engage the expertise of coaches and external organisations to deliver a wider variety of sports and activities. Use this as an opportunity to give teaching staff new skills. Do not use it as an ongoing delivery method.

Coach-led activity should include staff development, so improvements in provision are sustainable. This could then end the need for regular coach-led incentives.   

Governing bodies, trustees or proprietors should seek assurance that providers have appropriate safeguarding and child protection policies and procedures in place. They should inspect these if they need to.

Transport costs  for top-up swimming, extra-curricular and competitive activities

You can use the PE and sport premium funding to fund transport costs to:

• top-up swimming sessions
• participate in competitive events, either during or outside the school day
• travel to extra-curricular opportunities to give children access to other sporting activities or specialist sport instruction

Do not use the funding to pay for transport to activities which meet the minimum requirements of the national curriculum, or the existing PE curriculum for academies. There are more details under ‘What you cannot use the PE and sport premium for’.

What you cannot use the PE and sport premium for

Capital expenditure

You must not use funding for capital expenditure that meets our definition.

Defining capital expenditure

We define capital expenditure as either:

• buying a tangible or intangible asset
• expenditure which adds to or enhances the value of an existing asset

For expenditure to be treated as capital, the asset must:

• be used for more than one year
• be above the de minimis threshold for recognition of assets to the school, local authority or trust’s balance sheet – this can include:
  • individual assets worth over the de minimis threshold
  • grouped assets – assets of a similar nature that the school buys at the same time, which cost more than the de minimis threshold
  • bulked assets – for example a bulk purchase of equipment which costs more overall than the de minimis threshold
• increase the useful life, performance or value of the asset

You must not fund the spending through the PE and sport premium if it would trigger asset recognition for the school, trust or local authority, under your own local accounting policy.

Examples of capital expenditure

Capital expenditure includes, for example:

• multi-use games areas and active mile tracks
• forest school environments and trim trails
• buying vehicles
• fixed playground equipment, such as climbing frames
• trophy cabinets or similar

What capital expenditure does not include

Capital expenditure does not include spending which only maintains the value of an existing asset.

You can use the premium for revenue maintenance costs associated with existing assets in some circumstances. For example, you can repaint lines on a playground. The playground is an existing asset and the expenditure is routine maintenance, not capital investment.

If you are unsure if a particular cost is revenue expenditure, seek professional advice. DfE cannot provide individual advice on the classification of expenditure.

Core staff costs

You must not use the funding to employ coaches or specialist teachers to cover planning preparation and assessment arrangements.

You must not use the funding to pay staff salaries. For example, do not use it to employ someone to specifically administer the PE and sport premium. Do not use your entire funding allocation to employ someone who is responsible for arranging and running PE, sport or activity sessions.

Other examples include:

• funding to cover teaching during the school day
• funding the cost of a teaching assistant or apprentice to deliver PE lessons, sports or physical activities instead of teaching staff

Fund all these costs from your core staffing budgets.

Meeting minimum curriculum requirements and transport for it

You must not use the funding to teach the minimum requirements of the national curriculum, or the existing PE curriculum for academies.

Fund this through your core funding.

Do not use the premium to pay for transport to activities which meet the minimum requirements of the national curriculum, or the existing PE curriculum for academies.

This includes travel to:

• swimming lessons
• outdoor adventure activities
• other sports or activities you provide access to during the school day

Spending outside the academic year and funding future services  

You must spend the PE and sport premium funding in full in the academic year it has been allocated for.

You should not allocate it to only benefit a certain year group. We provide funding for all pupils in years 1 to 6.

You cannot roll over any unused funding into the following academic year. You must spend the funding before 31 July 2026, so you can account for it in the PE and sport premium digital expenditure reporting return.

You must not use the funding to buy services to deliver or use in following academic years. This includes paying for invoices and subscriptions in advance.

Staff PE kit

You must not use the funding to buy staff PE kit.

Swimming and water safety lessons in the curriculum

Schools get general funding for curriculum provision, which includes swimming and water safety lessons.

You cannot use the PE and sport premium funding to fund these lessons.

Accountability

Senior leadership

Your senior leadership team should make sure the funding is spent to make additional and sustainable improvements to the PE, sport and physical activity you offer.

You may want to involve the people responsible for the delivery of PE in the school when you decide how to spend the funding.

Governors

Governors should scrutinise schools’ strategy statements, including their:

• plans for and use of their PE and sport premium funding
• the outcomes achieved in the previous academic year

Governors and academy trustees should:

• monitor how the funding is being spent and how it fits into school improvement plans
• assess the impact the spending has on pupils

 You can use our monitoring tool to do this. We have worked with the National Governance Association and the Local Government Association to make the tool.

Conditions of grant

You must follow the terms set out in the conditions of grant document.

If a school, local authority or academy proprietor does not comply with these terms, the Secretary of State may require the school to repay all or any part of the PE and sport premium funding paid.

Reporting 

Completing the digital expenditure reporting return

You must complete the digital expenditure reporting return at the end of the academic year.

Each qualifying school in a MAT must complete the return.

The return outlines:

• how you has used your PE and sport premium funding
• the impact your spending has had on achieving the aims and objectives of the funding

The return includes a series of sub-forms. These have sets of questions asking how the PE and sport premium funding has been used to make improvements in the 5 key areas highlighted in this guidance.

Information you will need

We will ask for information including:

• figures on the overall spend
• what the funding has been spent on
• whether there is any unspent funding

We will also ask for data on the percentage of pupils in your year 6 cohort who met the national curriculum swimming and water safety requirements, to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively – for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

You should provide attainment data for year 6 pupils from their most recent swimming and water safety lessons. This may be data from previous years, depending on your swimming and water safety programme.

You must keep attainment data from swimming and water safety lessons in years 3 to 5, so you can report this accurately in year 6.

We ask for this information because schools may use PE and sport premium funding to improve swimming and water safety attainment, either through:

• teacher training opportunities
• top-up swimming and water safety lessons

Providing data on swimming and water safety attainment is not a requirement of the conditions of grant.

Role of school leaders and governors

School leaders complete the return.

Governing boards should review, scrutinise, and confirm the funding has been used appropriately, before submission by the deadline.

When the return will open

We will open the return to schools in June 2026. You must complete it by 5pm on 31 July 2026.

We will provide more guidance on how to complete the return before the 2025 to 2026 reporting window opens.

After you submit the return, you can also download copies of the return to meet PE and sport premium reporting requirements.

Publishing an online report

As part of the conditions of grant, you must publish a report detailing how you have spent your PE and sport premium funding allocation on your website, by 31 July 2026.

You can download a copy of your digital expenditure reporting return and use this as your published report. You must make sure it meets accessibility requirements.

You should also keep the previous year’s written report on your website. This allows comparisons to be made.

Role of school leaders and governors

School leaders draft the report.

Governing boards should review it and hold leaders accountable for:

• how schools plan for and use PE and sport premium funding
• the outcomes achieved in the previous academic year

What to include

The published report must include:

• the amount of PE and sport premium funding you received
• a full breakdown of how you  spent it
• the impact the school has seen on pupils’ participation and attainment in PE and sport
• how you will sustain this improvement

The report must also include details on the percentage of pupils in year 6 who have met the national curriculum requirement to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively – for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Each individual recipient school in a MAT must publish a report on its website detailing how it has spent its premium. A MAT cannot publish a single document to cover all schools. This still applies if the funding is pooled into a consolidated fund.

How you can monitor and track your spending

You may find the PE funding evaluation form helpful, to plan, break down and record how you use the PE and sport premium funding throughout the year.

You can then use this to complete the digital expenditure reporting return at the end of the academic year.

The form is on the Association for PE  and Youth Sport Trust  websites.

DfE monitoring of spending  

If a published report or digital expenditure reporting return shows concerns or discrepancies in spend of the PE and sport premium funding in relation to the conditions of grant and requirements in this guidance, DfE may take appropriate and proportionate action.

This may include action to recover funding.  

Support and further guidance

Several organisations and networks support schools with their PE and sport premium funding.

These include the School Games Organiser network and Active Partnerships.

School Games Organisers network  

You could contact your local School Games Organiser to find out about engagement or support. They may be able to tell you about relevant opportunities for your pupils to get active.

There is a national network of over 450 School Games Organisers. They:

• support all children to have the opportunity to take part in competitive sport
• work directly with local schools to coordinate inclusive sport competitions across 40 different sports and activities
• coordinate appropriate competitive opportunities for all young people from Key Stage 2 to 4
• recruit, train and deploy a suitable workforce
• support the development of club opportunities for all young people

Find out more about the School Games programme.   

Active Partnerships  

You could contact your local active partnership to find out about engagement or support.

Active Partnerships is a nationwide physical activity and sport network that exists to create a healthier, fairer nation.

There are 43 active partnerships across the country. Use the Active Partnerships website to find your local one.

Other support

You can get further support at:

Association for PE  has advice on:

• the PE and sport premium
• CPD providers
• resources
• the PE funding evaluation form
• safe practice in physical education, school sport and physical activity

Sport England  has advice on using the PE and sport premium effectively.

Swim England has advice and resources on primary school swimming and water safety.

The Black Swimming Association has advice on understanding and addressing barriers that limit communities of African, Caribbean, and Asian heritage from engaging in aquatics and water safety.

The Inclusive Education Hub is an online platform of resources to help schools make PE and sport more inclusive.

Youth Sport Trust has advice on:

• wellbeing
• inclusion and youth leadership
• raising whole school standards through PE and school sport
• the PE funding evaluation form and budget tracking tool

Guidance for governing boards

The National Governance Association has published guidance on the use of the PE and sport premium.

It explains how governing boards can:

• influence and support the planning and delivery of PE, as well as physical activity and sport
• monitor the impact