School Sport

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. Before I move into the body of my contribution to the debate, I take the opportunity to thank the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for his closing remarks. I was a little worried, when he was about seven eighths of the way through his speech, that we were not going to hear his views of and visions for the future. He is hugely passionate about this subject—

[Clive Efford]

I have written a book.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman has written books about the subject and spoken at length about it, so to hear him say that he wants to find a way in which we can demonstrate a cross-party, co-ordinated response to an issue that we both have such passion for is music to my ears. I hope that this is the dawn of a new approach to what should, fundamentally, not be a political football, as the Select Committee indicated in the title of its report. I hugely welcome his closing remarks.

Some excellent points have been made in the debate by both Government and Opposition Members, in particular those on the Select Committee itself. I add my thanks to the Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), for their report, which offers an informative analysis of the provision of PE and sport in schools, as well as a good and interesting range of suggestions as to how we can make further improvements. The Government response to the report, published on 16 October, provided a clear understanding of our recognition of the wide range of benefits from sport—as the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) also identified—which can be ensured by children taking part in physical activity and sport from an early age.

I know from my own love of sport and how it has helped to widen my opportunities that we must be committed to ensuring that all children and young people have the opportunity to lead healthy, active lifestyles, to participate in sport and physical activity both in and outside school and to compete against their peers. We are clear that improving PE and sport provision in schools is a top priority—I think that I said that five times in the first eight minutes of my evidence to the Committee.

We can all agree, as the Chair of the Committee said in his excellent opening contribution, that the 2012 Olympics were an inspiration to the whole country and something of which we can be hugely proud. We must have a determined and consensual commitment, as far as we can, to secure a lasting legacy for children and young people.

Our overarching strategy covers a wide range of areas, designed to provide significant long-term benefits derived from instilling an early enthusiasm for sport and physical activity. There was agreement during the debate that we have to get in early, as with many other aspects of children’s lives. I was interested in the points made by the hon. Member for Eltham about pre-school, as well as where else in and around the school environment we could improve opportunity and participation. In due course, it will be good to hear his views on extending the school day or the role of schools in providing a wider range of opportunities before the compulsory school age, to see whether they are ways in which we could help to improve access to sport and PE.

[Bill Esterson]

The logic of the point that both Front Benchers have made is that parents need to be engaged. That is another piece of work, but it follows on. Perhaps the Minister will add that into his discussions with ministerial colleagues.

[Mr Timpson]

Absolutely. As in other areas of a child’s life—internet safety, for example—parental involvement and responsibility have to form part of the solution, so that whether children are in or out of school they get the same message. We have heard about some recent cases of over-exuberance among parents on the touchline, when perhaps they have taken that responsibility a little too far, but we want to see parents more involved in holding schools to account, as well as in helping the schools to deliver sport and PE, so that their children get the best opportunities.

That is one of the reasons why, as part of the sport premium, schools have to publish on their website how they are spending it and what impact it is having, so that parents can see for themselves, form judgments and ask questions about whether it is doing what it set out to do. In answer to another question from the hon. Member for Eltham, that would include competitive and non-competitive sport in that school—it is not only competitive sport that will be part of that transparency.

To dwell on the history is always an interesting exercise when discussing school sport. I do not wish to chastise the hon. Gentleman for wanting to return to many of those issues, but it would be healthier for our children if we concentrated on the future and on where we can find joint enterprise to build on some fantastic work being done out there, spreading it more widely and making it more sustainable. That is why the cornerstone of our approach is the focus on improving provision in primary schools. I welcome the broad support for that both in this debate and more widely. Since September 2012, I have, with officials in the Department, spent a lot of time talking to head teachers, national governing bodies, Youth Sport Trust, Sport England, the Association for Physical Education and others, so as to understand where the money could have the greatest impact. The overwhelming consensus was that we should channel our energies towards the primary level.

That is why from autumn this year primary head teachers across the country have started to receive additional funding to improve the provision of PE and sport in their schools. The money is ring-fenced. The hon. Member for Eltham said that the Government’s philosophy is to give head teachers the freedom to spend money in the way they think is best for their pupils. This additional funding fulfils that objective, but the ring-fencing makes it clear how high a priority we place on ensuring that PE and sport in schools is of the highest possible calibre.

That is backed up by the fact that PE and sports provision is and will continue to be inspected by Ofsted, which is briefing all its inspectors on how to do that. There have also been changes to the school inspection handbook. I have seen for myself some of the section 5 inspection reports, in which far more prominence is already being given to the evaluation of how the school sport premium is being spent. I saw a report for a primary school in my own constituency that has clubbed together with other schools to bring in a full-time specialist PE teacher. The teacher spends one day a week in each of the four primary schools and on the fifth day goes to those pupils who need extra catch-up so that they can get to the level we all want to see.

My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) reminded us that the head teacher of a typical primary school will receive £9,250 to spend on sport provision between now and the summer term. The hon. Member for Sefton Central astutely observed that the premium has now been extended in the autumn statement to a third year, to include 2015-16. I do not for a minute want to suggest that my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Education Committee has not had his eye on the ball: to be absolutely fair to him, he attended the previous debate in this Chamber and the extension is in paragraph 2.164 of the autumn statement, so he is forgiven for failing on this occasion to have spotted such a hugely important announcement.

That announcement is an unequivocal demonstration of the importance that we attach to the embedding of school sport and PE in children’s lives. I am happy to repeat what I told the Select Committee: I want to keep pushing the issue within Government. Although it is often one of the most difficult exercises across Government, an important aspect of the cross-Government strategy on the issue has been pulling in funding and ongoing commitment from three Departments. I chair a regular ministerial group on school sport, which includes Youth Sport Trust, Sport England, the Association for Physical Education, Ofsted and others. There continues to be a joint commitment on funding and other resources.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does the Minister think that the move of public health responsibility to local authorities might have a part to play in engendering a greater focus on youth sport and school sport in particular?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Timpson]

That is an excellent point. We can see that in the evolving role of health and wellbeing boards and the development of joint strategic needs assessments across each local authority, with the greater responsibilities local authorities now have for the physical as well as mental health of their local population. To build on the remarks of the hon. Member for Sefton Central on education, health and care plans and also children with special education needs and the requirement to improve access to sport for disabled children, we have a real opportunity to push those issues up the agenda at a local level, so that there is a clear objective coming from national Government across a number of Departments that is replicated at local level. The county sports partnerships will be an important conduit for providing information, data and advice as to how we can best achieve that aim.

Some concerns have been raised about some of the new providers coming into the market and schools must be able to access the information they need to spend the sport premium in the best way. I acknowledge that, and we have been at pains to set out on the Department for Education’s gov.uk website a host of best practice examples of schools that already have superb ways of embedding sport in their schools, including ones that work particularly with girls and with disabled children. I visited the Marjorie McClure specialist school in Bromley to see how the Project Ability programme that we support in about 50 special schools is making a discernible difference to the quality and outcomes of the education of young people with disabilities. The Youth Sport Trust and the Association for Physical Education have provided excellent practical guidance to primary schools so that they can learn to use the money as effectively as possible.

As the hon. Member for Eltham pointed out, we are independently evaluating the impact of the premium, and Ofsted is also doing some work on that. We are tracking 40 schools all the way through, and about another 700 will be visited and evaluated. I hope that by next summer we will have a stronger evidence base for school performance. The continued involvement of Ofsted is a key way of changing behaviour and culture on the ground. The work we are doing on initial teacher training and on bringing in high-quality specialist PE teachers—I have seen their calibre for myself—is extremely encouraging. It is only a pilot at this stage but gives us a model that we can look to spread more widely across primary schools.

I acknowledge that the issue affects not just primary but secondary schools. That is why the £1 billion youth sports strategy from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is so important. A satellite club will be set up in every secondary school, and there will be large investment in facilities. It was also announced today that DCMS is putting in an extra £18 million to improve facilities in primary schools that have a particular need to enhance their sports facilities. Those schools are predominantly in inner-city areas, but there are also other parts of the country where schools simply do not have the outdoor space they need. That programme will run from next year, and some of the facilities will be in place by next summer. That welcome move has come about from the co-ordination of efforts by Departments to establish where there are still gaps in provision across the country.

I acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to do and that everyone wants the premium to become a sustained model. That is our objective and my commitment to it remains strong: in these straitened times, this important investment must make a difference not only in the next three years but beyond that. I welcome any support that the Opposition bring to bear so that we get the best for our children.