Examining Sport and PE provision in schools

The Youth Sport Trust has revealed the findings from its PE and school sport survey, looking at the quality and provision of PE and school sport. The survey aimed to identify the varying levels of provision across the country and give schools the opportunity to assess their own performance against others locally and nationally.
    
Since 2010 there has been no national survey resulting in a lack of current intelligence around provision, the activity levels of pupils, and emerging trends across physical education, physical activity and school sport.
    
Alongside participation rates, schools were asked to consider the value they place on PE and sport to improve the well-being, social skills and educational achievement of young people.
    
At the time the survey was launched, in June 2014, John Steele, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, said: “It is crucial that we play a key role in improving physical activity rates amongst young people and there couldn’t be a more important time for us to investigate the current levels of PE and sport in schools.”
    
The Youth Sport Trust conducted its survey in June and July 2014 and 1,392 primary schools and 554 secondary schools responded.

Actively encouraging PE
The survey found that 97 per cent of primary schools and 85 per cent of secondary schools actively encourage physical activity as part of the school day. YST member schools (95 per cent) were more likely than non-member schools (92 per cent) to say that physical activity was encouraged during the school day at their school. Similarly, teachers at mixed schools (94 per cent) were more likely to say that this was the case, compared to both teachers at all-female (86 per cent) and all-male (73 per cent) schools.

The most common methods of encouraging physical activity in primary schools were; adapting playground designs (80 per cent), playground leadership training and roles for young people (70 per cent) and training of midday supervisors to encourage children to be active at break and lunchtime (69 per cent).
  
The most common methods of encouraging physical activity in secondary schools included a focused approach to encouraging physical activity at break times (51 per cent) and a bespoke extra-curricular offering for the least active pupils (38 per cent). However, it is important to note that a quarter (25 per cent) of secondary school respondents said that their school did not employ any of these methods of encouraging physical activity.    
    
The shows that investment in PE and school sport is making a difference. Three-quarters of primary schools (76 per cent) said their school has a PE Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Strategy for staff.
    
The majority of primary schools indicated that a combination of teachers/staff (92 per cent) and external coaches (85 per cent) deliver extra-curricular sport and physical activity in their school. Almost all schools in the South West (97 per cent) and North West (96 per cent) said that extra-curricular sport was delivered by teachers/staff in their schools.

Contribution of PE
Schools were asked to indicate which areas they consider that PE, physical activity and sport makes a positive contribution to. 95 per cent of schools said that it makes a positive contribution to life skills (confidence, resilience, resourcefulness, teamwork, communication skills).
    
They also said it contributed to achievement (91 per cent), behaviour and truancy (70 per cent) and attainment (69 per cent). Secondary schools were significantly more likely than primary schools to say that PE and sport contributed to pupils’ attainment, attendance, behaviour and truancy and integration within the school, while primary schools were more likely to say that it contributed to parental engagement. Schools in London (72 per cent) were significantly more likely than those in other regions (54-62 per cent) to say that school sport contributed to integration within the school (e.g. the integration of different cultures, and pupils with disabilities).
    
Equally, the results of the survey provide an indication of the positive difference made to the provision of school sport over the last 20 years. 65 per cent of schools said they consult with pupils about the provision of sport in their schools. 48 per cent of primary schools include PE and sport in their transition programme, using it as a vehicle to drive wider school agendas.
    
Multi-skills is the fourth most commonly offered extra-curricular sport in primary schools, revealing an understanding of age and stage appropriate sport provision.

Work to be done
Despite some positive findings, there is still much to be done. Whilst the survey cannot be directly compared against the last PE and School Sport Survey (2009/10), due to the use of different research approaches, the data does suggest that there may be levels of decline in certain areas including the average minutes of PE offered to pupils per week and the average number of club links.
    
The average number of minutes spent taking part in PE in a typical week was found to be 102 for Key Stage 1 and 114 for Key Stage 2 in the 2013/14 survey. However, respondents to a similar question in the 2009/10 survey indicated higher values of 126 minutes in Year 1 and 2 (Key Stage 1) and 127 minutes in Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 (Key Stage 2). The 2013/14 survey found that on average pupils across all Key Stages were offered less than two hours of PE per week. The 2013/14 survey found that on average schools had five links with community (or other) sport clubs. While the 2009/10 survey found that on average schools have 9.1 sport or activity links to clubs.

Ensuring quality PE provision
Finally, schools were asked to select what they considered to be the most important factors in ensuring high quality PE and sport for their pupils. The top factors as rated by all schools were continued investment in primary sport provision (82 per cent); infrastructure or support for schools to work together (51 per cent), and continued investment in the Sainsbury’s School Games (45 per cent).
    
While there was some agreement between primary and secondary schools, there was also some significant differences. Continued investment in primary sport provision and infrastructure or support for schools to work together appeared on both lists, but investment in the Sainsbury’s School Games, more specialist teachers and enhanced guidance for schools only appeared in the most common responses from primary teachers. Similarly, funding for PE teachers to organise competitions for club links, funding to support specialist extra-curricular coaches and improving the quality of PE Initial Teacher training were among the five most common responses from secondary school teachers, but did not appear on the primary school list.

Further information
www.youthsporttrust.org