The announcement sets out a package including:

• £166m for the second payment of the PE Premium for 2025/26, and funding for the School Games Organisers Network to the end of the 26/27 financial year
• £200m in capital funding for facilities
• £100m for transitional support for primary schools as a new approach is introduced
• £580m for the new PE and School Sport Partnerships Network, set to be fully up and running from Spring 2027

The announcement highlights an ambition to modernise the approach to PE and school sport which was so successful in the 2000s, with analysis by Ofsted finding School Sport Partnerships improved access, participation and school-club links. The Government announcement comes at a time when less than half of young people achieve the recommended 60 minutes of activity a day – with inequalities in access for girls, children with SEND and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Furthermore, by the time children reach the end of primary school, 1 in 5 are living with obesity and 1 in 5 young people (aged 8 to 25) have a probable mental health disorder, despite successive governments investing billions through the PE Premium over the past decade. 

The Government is expected to initiate a formal process to procure a new National Delivery Partner for the PE and School Sport Partnerships Network shortly. The successful bidder will work alongside national governing bodies to provide a mixture of universal and targeted support to schools based on their needs, aiming to tackle the activity divide between boys and girls, and disadvantaged pupils and their peers. The aim is a to create a school-centred and nationally co-ordinated approach which joins up PE, physical activity and school sport provision across the school and community.

Responding to the news, Youth Sport Trust CEO, Ali Oliver MBE, said:

“Today’s announcement setting out funding for PE and school sport is an important step in providing greater clarity for schools ahead of the half-term break. Increasing physical activity levels is crucial to achieving the Government’s ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children.
 
“I am grateful to officials and ministers across the Department for Education, Health and Social Care, and Culture, Media and Sport as well as Sport England for their hard work and commitment to delivering a new vision for PE and school sport. Today’s announcement reflects a step towards an approach the Youth Sport Trust, national governing bodies, and other voices across the sector have consistently called for.
 
“Our hope is the new vision for PE and school sport – including through a reimagined PE curriculum and the new PE and School Sport Partnership Network – will, in the long term, be more strategic and achieve greater impact building on the best of the Primary PE and Sport Premium and the previous success of the world-leading School Sport Partnership Network.
 
“We recognise the shifts in investment may cause challenges in the short-term. The period of change to a new era of PE and school sport will take time, and understandably cause disruption particularly to primary schools. However, the protection of dedicated funding to support the physical, social and emotional development of children and young people must be welcomed and we all need to work together to manage a difficult transition. Like others, we await further detail about what the investment announced today will translate into, but I would like to take this opportunity to recognise and thank those dedicated school leaders and system leaders and their staff who have been waiting a long time for this announcement, but who have never been distracted from their mission. 
 
“In the meantime, we hope today’s announcement is a step towards clarity and stability for schools and those working with them, and the opportunity to truly harness the life changing benefits that come from play and sport.”