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Government accused of 'turning its back' on school sport

By Dan RoanBBC sports news correspondent

Last updated on .From the section Sportcomments114

The BBC's Dan Roan reports on school sports and the Olympic legacy

The Government has been accused of "turning its back on school sport" and undermining the Olympic legacy six months after the Games.

Shadow Sports Minister Clive Efford MPexternal-link told the BBC: "What has gone on in school sport is absolutely disastrous."

Education Secretary Michael Gove is expected to announce a new strategy for school sport later this month.

Despite record investment in elite and community sport, the Government has made some cuts in schools sports.

Ministers say they are spending £1bn on youth sport over the next five years through Sport England.

But the government has abolished ringfenced funding for the national School Sport Partnerships (SSPs) and ended recommendation for two hours of PE in schools each week.

The SSP network enabled well-equipped 'hub' secondary schools to lend PE teachers to those that needed them, especially primary schools.

Two years ago it lost its £162m funding. Following protests, £65m was reinstated allowing the programme to run partially. But that is due to cease before the start of the next academic year in September, leaving concern about the future.

Against this backdrop, the government is preparing its strategy, with the help of advisor and London 2012 chairman, Lord Coe.

The focus will be on primary school children, but Efford is concerned that the Olympic legacy has already been undermined.

He said: "The SSPs were the foundation for building a national sports plan where we could get children active and keep them active.

"They took £162m, all of the budget, away from the Youth Sport Trust, who organised it. What we've seen is a postcode lottery now.

"That was just completely destroyed, we have nothing. The Olympic legacy is seriously undermined by what's going on in our schools.

"We need a long-term strategy blueprint to get sport into our schools.

"If we don't, we're storing up a huge problem for ourselves, for the economy and for the NHS. Doing nothing isn't an option."

Research has shown a 60% drop-off in the time dedicated to organising school sport,external-link while a third of children leaving primary school are now obese or overweight.

Speaking in December, Sports minister Hugh Robertson said the government would make an announcement about school sport in early 2013.

An Ofsted report into levels of sport in schools over the past four years will be published in the next fortnight and is expected to show a fall in participation.

In addition to the £1bn spending on youth sport, the government also intend to extend the School Games, a scheme intended to boost competitive sport. Prime Minister David Cameron has said competitive team sports will be made compulsory for all primary-age children.

Lord Coe told the BBC plans were being put together by the Department of Education.

"The focus will be on primary school sport and that's important," he said.

"That's moving in the right direction. What we really want to do is give good quality physical education within the timetable, competitive sport in a properly managed environment, and give young people - particularly in state schools - the opportunity of high quality PE."

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114 comments

  • Comment posted by anotherfakename, at 14:00 1 Feb 2013

    Why is it that we don't have sports facilities at ALL secondary schools and that these facilities aren't automatically open to the public in the evenings, weekends and holidays. Combining council 'sports centres' with the school sports requirements would clearly be cheaper (as would combining libraries).
    It also makes the school part of the community.
    Local rugby club? Why not at the school????

  • Comment posted by User0374216861, at 13:20 1 Feb 2013

    Sport in schools needs to be encouraged. Exercise is not only good for the body, but it also stimulates the brain.

    When will the powers that be see this link?

  • Comment posted by wirral18, at 13:08 1 Feb 2013

    The abolishment of the sports partnership was disgraceful&also disastrous.
    I helped run tag rugby in my local school which has now gone as has cricket and football partnership.Only netball remains because the all female staff have taken that on themselves.

    Lads who needed sport as an outlet £also as an incentive to do well in school are now failing and getting into trouble. Tories are a disgrace

  • Comment posted by franksol, at 13:16 1 Feb 2013

    Well of course these cuts have to be made. After all the MPs are expecting a 30% rise in pay during this period of austerity (for some). The funding was only for the children of "plebs" in "ordinary schools". The public schools have lots of playing fields and lots of coaches and not to mention charitable status. So no problem to Gove et al.

  • Comment posted by User0123396980, at 14:33 1 Feb 2013

    I was never technically skilled enough to partake in many sports outside of school but it never stopped me getting involved and enjoying lots of sports at school. This isn't about obesity, it's about teamwork, competition and learning how to lose and how to behave honourably when you win.

  • Comment posted by User0698736559, at 13:19 1 Feb 2013

    Extra-curricular sport depends to a very large degree on voluntary, after hours, time spent by PE teachers to staff and run it. It is fascinating to me that so many trolls on BBC HYS feel the need to denigrate PE teachers and their peers. It is also amazing that Mr Gove spends his time lowering the morale of all teachers and then expects them to improve extra-curricular provision. Gove is a joke.

  • Comment posted by Sixp, at 14:30 1 Feb 2013

    King Gove the First doesn't like sport and given the pathetic state of British democracy he can do what he likes.

  • Comment posted by User0148124365, at 14:17 1 Feb 2013

    There's one overwhelming and absolute reason that the Govt is 'turning it's back on school sport - it's because the previous Govt brought in School Sports Partnerships.
    Nothing more than that.

  • Comment posted by User0913733823, at 15:22 1 Feb 2013

    A number of my friends are PE teachers, and the facilities they have compared to when I was at school are amazing. I'm not saying they don't require investement, but its the teachers that inspire, motivate, develop and enable the youth to achieve. When I listen to their lesson plans, they're a million miles away from when I had to do 10 laps of the field in my boxer shorts because I forgot my kit.

  • Comment posted by User0163941196, at 13:32 1 Feb 2013

    Getting our youngsters off electrical gadgets and outside is imperitive to the future health of our country, every pupil at school should have the opportunity and be encouraged to find a sport that suits them.
    It is common sense.

  • Comment posted by gerr60, at 14:46 1 Feb 2013

    Look? how many of you can remember when we had real sport at school, football, rugby, athletics, cross country etc,etc, when we had sports days and best of all if you were good you were selected to compete against other schools and if you were very good you were then selected to compete for your county, after that the sky's the limmit.
    What do we have today, built on school fields.

  • Comment posted by User0351786511, at 13:39 1 Feb 2013

    Having taught rugby at junior schools for the last 5 years i think that sport is a very good vehicle to encourage all children to be active and build their confidence. Children love to compete and have fun. Teachers lack time and detailed technical knowledge which can only come from club coaches who are immersed in the sport. All schools should have access to sports facilities and support.

  • Comment posted by Patron, at 14:40 1 Feb 2013

    2 yrs ago I was a PE teacher at a good secondary school. Lessons were one hour long. 10 minutes changing [+ security gates] at either end of the lesson meant that after a warm-up, actual delivery was 30 minutes. No lunchtime activities either, because we HAD to register a form. Limited after-school clubs due to admin and meetings. The school was branded a 'healthy' school. Lies.

  • Comment posted by U14841845, at 22:36 1 Feb 2013

    Labours school sports partnership "had quietly been achieving notable success in getting pupils across England to be more physically active during school hours. It's quite something for a Conservative education secretary to rouse sporting heroes, parents, schoolchildren, headteachers and newspapers like the Daily Mail & Daily Telegraph into frustrated uncomprehending opposition but Gove managed it

  • Comment posted by urtlescurtle, at 14:26 1 Feb 2013

    Nothing's changed. When I was a boy, I went to a private preparatory school where we played rugby or soccer in the winter and cricket in the summer for at least an hour every afternoon during weekdays. I loved it. After that, I went to a state school where sport was such a low priority that you were lucky to get an hour a week (never mind a day). I lost interest, as a result.

  • Comment posted by Isitonlyme, at 13:59 1 Feb 2013

    This all seems a bit odd given that my kid's (bog standard) state secondary school is spending £2.1m building a new state of the art sports facility....guess they were just lucky.

  • Comment posted by Jen698, at 13:36 1 Feb 2013

    In order to fit teaching for the new EBACC exams into the timetable we have just cut compulosry PE to 2 hours a fortnight.
    @29 This govt stopped minimum standards for school meals AND the need for compulsory cooking classes.

  • Comment posted by User0525307836, at 13:21 1 Feb 2013

    No wonder we have so many overweight children. We had compulsory games three times a week from 5 to 16 when I was at school, and none of us was fat!

  • Comment posted by Sons Of Albion, at 13:50 1 Feb 2013

    Well yes the Olympics are over now you see,MPs don't have to pretend they give a damn anymore. Money and the making of it are their only concerns. School sports make happier,healthier kids but zero wonga so they are 'fair game' (pun intended) along with the sick,disabled,old,libraries,bin collections,anything that makes no money.

  • Comment posted by User0312994634, at 22:33 2 Feb 2013

    We have to tap all the talent in the country - sports and the arts - to be the best. Relying on only the priviledged 10% is not OK...Gove must go!