Stories
What is actually happening to PE and sport funding
Every head teacher we have spoken to in the last fortnight has asked some version of the same question. What is happening to the Sport Premium, and what am I supposed to do about it?
So here it is in plain English, with no sales pitch attached. Where something is not yet settled, we say so.
The short version
The PE and Sport Premium as schools have known it since 2013 is coming to an end. In its place the government is building a PE and School Sport Partnerships Network, expected to be fully operational from spring 2027.
This academic year, 2026/27, is the bridge between the two.
What that means for the money
As it stands, the picture for this year is a transitional one rather than a cliff edge.
- Primary schools receive a transitional payment for 2026/27, with the autumn term allocation set at roughly one term’s worth of the old Premium.
- There is a one-off PE Premium payment on top of that to help schools through the transition year.
- Separately, there is a substantial capital pot aimed at school sport facilities, including making them work better for children with SEND.
- The whole package sits inside around £1 billion for PE and school sport over three years, with the Partnerships Network itself backed by roughly £580 million.
The national delivery partner for the Network has not been appointed yet, and it is not yet clear how schools will be selected for targeted support or how local delivery gets commissioned once it is live. Anyone telling you they know the answer to that today is guessing.
Please treat the figures above as our reading of what has been announced, and check the current DfE guidance on GOV.UK before you plan against them. It is moving.
The date to put in your diary
5pm on Wednesday 30 September 2026. That is the deadline for this year’s PE and Sport Premium reporting submission.
It tends to be the thing that gets remembered on the 29th. If you have a business manager or a PE lead, this is worth a five minute conversation with them this week rather than the week it is due.
What we would actually do about it
Three honest suggestions, and none of them require you to buy anything.
Spend this year’s money on things that outlast this year’s money. A one-off block of coaching disappears the day it ends. Training your own staff, building a scheme of work your teachers can keep delivering, or setting up a club that runs on volunteers, all of that is still there when the funding changes shape.
Get your evidence in order now. Whatever the Network turns out to look like, the schools that will do well are the ones that can already show what their provision achieves. Not how many sessions ran. What changed for the children who needed it most. If you are not capturing that, this is the year to start.
Look at who is missing. The Premium was easy to spend on the children who already turn up. The direction of travel in every policy document we have read is about the ones who do not. Girls, children with SEND, the least active families. Worth knowing your own numbers before somebody asks you for them.
Where we sit in all this
We are a delivery organisation, so of course we would like to work with schools. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
What we are not going to do is use a funding change as a scare tactic. We have watched this sector do that before and it helps nobody, least of all the head teacher trying to make a decision in September with half the information.
If it is useful to talk it through, we are happy to, with no expectation attached. Twenty years in, we have seen a few of these transitions, and we would rather schools around here went into this one with their eyes open.
Every move matters.
Andy
Sources for the figures above: GOV.UK, £1bn boost to PE and school sport, GOV.UK PE and sport premium guidance, and Schools Week on the Partnerships Network. Correct to the best of our understanding on 9 September 2026.