Sports Premium

What is it?

The Sports Premium is an additional grant to primary schools to help them promote participation and excellence in sporting pursuits.

How much do we get?

The Sports Premium fund is driven by pupil numbers and in the academic year 2022 - 2022 we expect to receive approximately £21,000.

How can the grant be used?

The grant can be used in any way that the school chooses which will help to increase participation levels in sport, access to a range of sports and excellence in sporting achievement.

What are the needs of children at Martins Wood?

Following regular reviews of the impact of our spending for PE we continue to believe that we need to provide enough time and energy to coach children for league matches and tournaments. As the largest primary school in the area we have a bigger pool of talent to choose from and logic would suggest that we should therefore be highly placed in all events. We therefore continue to use an element of this funding for this purpose.

Our analysis of pupil participation in sports show that football very much dominates the sporting activity of the majority of our pupils, especially outside school. For this reason we use some of this grant to provide sporting activities such as archery, athletics  and javelin to provide opportunities to stimulate children's interest in a wider range of sports.

Many of our staff are not PE specialists and they value the opportunity to work alongside specialists in PE who can support and advise them and indeed take some children during lessons to provide coaching or specialist tuition.  

How was the grant used in 2020/21?

Two sports coaches were provided to work alongside teachers. Part of their role is to prepare pupils who were representing the school in league matches and tournaments.

We also use some funding to purchase support from Stevenage Borough Football Club who offer a range of sporting activities which enhances what we are able to offer in school.

We have also used funding to provide opportunities for children to have a go at more unusual sports in lessons such as fencing and archery. These have been followed up with the opportunity for children to attend extra-curricular clubs to develop their skills and pursue their interest in these activities.

During lockdown our sports coaches provided online activities for our pupils and participated in the rota to enable the school to remain open for vulnerable pupils and the children of keyworkers. Our sports coaches also returned from June when year groups began to return following lockdown.

What difference has the sports spending make?

The school has been highly placed in all competitive events. Children have enjoyed access to a wider range of sport and PE. A significant number of pupils attended archery, fencing and athletics clubs.

Teachers have developed their skills and benefitted from sports specialists working alongside them in PE lessons.

How will the grant be used in 2021/22?

The school will continue to employ two sports coaches and the funding we receive in 2021 -2022 will make a significant contribution towards their salaries. We will also be using the Sports Premium and other sources of funding to offer the children the opportunity to try non-traditional sports such as archery and fencing.

Longer term impact

We want to ensure the Sports Premium has a long term impact for our school. As well as providing coaching for our current pupils we know that our teachers are learning from working alongside our coaches, giving them increasing confidence in PE and games.

Swimming

We were unable to sustain our usual swimming programme over the periods of lockdown. We have reorganised our usual timetable from September 2021 and arranged an additional session with the swimming pool to catch-up on opportunities that were missed because swimming could not take place.