The Sport and Recreation Alliance’s chair appeared in front of the Education Select Committee today to give the Alliance’s views on the Government’s strategy for PE and school sport.
It was the Government’s first formal session to gather oral evidence on school sport since London 2012.
Mike Diaper OBE, director of community sport at Sport England and Sue Wilkinson, strategic lead and director at the Association for Physical Education were also on the panel.
Three Olympians - Jonathan Edwards, Lynne Hutchinson, and Rachel Smith took part in later discussions.
Much of the discussion focused in on the Government’s £150m investment in primary schools that was announced in March and is set to be rolled out at the beginning of this academic year.
The panel also reflected on school sports partnerships and the need for the organisations involved in the delivery of sport to “knock heads” together in order to deliver a successful long-term legacy.
The Alliance, which represents over 320 different sports and recreational activities, emphasised the need for a broad and balanced national curriculum offering a range of activities like dance and outdoor pursuits – not just ‘competitive’ or ‘traditional’ sports.
The panel provided a unanimous voice on a number of issues, including the need for strong strategic direction from a central body and clear guidance from the government on how head teachers can use new funding to best effect.
Much emphasis was put on the importance of physical literacy being taught at the earliest opportunity in schools.
Andy Reed said:
“PE and sport is central to what schools should do. We need to give the foundations to children in early life at primary school – just like they do with maths or English.
“Physical literacy is imperative and the key is enjoyment of sport at an early age of life. Build in physical activity into early life and embed it in people for the rest of their lives.”
On the government’s funding approach, the panel was in agreement that strong leadership and guidance was needed to ensure the money wasn’t just lost in the educational system.
Reed said: “When we are given a large pot of money, different sport organisations often fight for their slice of the cake.
“We need to see a genuine cross-departmental approach to sport and really strong strategic direction from a central body would assist the sector as a whole.
“We need to recreate partnership working to give head teachers the skills needed to use this very welcome £150m of funding.
“If schools can improve their teacher training then we can create sustainability from this two-year period of funding across all of our primary schools.”
On the loss of school sports partnerships, Reed said:
“We were very disappointed. They made enormous progress in school sports. But that’s gone now and so we need to get sport to work together.
“We are very grateful for the new funding and it’s now up to us as a sector to make the most of it. SSPs helped create momentum and we hope these new funds will keep this up.”
For media enquiries contact Libby Jellie on 020 7976 3933.
A joint contribution from the Sport and Recreation Alliance, /Together, Sport England and the Eden Project.
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