Gove: “I want competitive sport to be at the centre of a truly rounded education”

Michael Gove has set out the direction of travel, and initial funding, for the Coalition Government’s new approach on school sports. Schools will receive funding to allow PE teachers to further embed competitive sport in schools across the country and raise participation.

Every secondary school will receive funding up to the end of the academic year in 2013 to pay for one day a week of a PE teacher’s time to be spent out of the classroom, encouraging greater take-up of competitive sport in primary schools and securing a fixture network for schools to increase the amount of intra- and inter-school competition.

The Department is announcing time-limited funding:

• The Department will pay school sport partnerships for the full school year to the end of the summer term 2011 at a cost of £47 million. This will ensure the partnerships and their service can continue until the end of the academic year.
• A further £65 million from the Department’s spending review settlement will be paid to enable every secondary school to release one PE teacher for a day a week in the school year 2011/12 and in 2012/13. This will ensure all the benefits of the current system are fully embedded.

Michael Gove commented:

I want competitive sport to be at the centre of a truly rounded education that all schools offer. But this must be led by schools and parents, not by top down policies from Whitehall. It’s time to ensure what was best in school sport partnerships around the country is fully embedded and move forward to a system where schools and parents are delivering on sports with competition at the heart.

This will take some time and I’m pleased to be able to confirm some funding for school sports partnerships during this transition.  But I’m looking to PE teachers to embed sport and put more emphasis on competitions for more pupils in their own schools, and to continue to help the teachers in local primary schools do the same.

The Government is clear that at the heart of our ambition is a traditional belief that competitive sport, when taught well, brings out the best in everyone, be they the Olympian of tomorrow or the child who wants to keep fit and have fun learning new sports and games.