Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance he has issued to schools on the amount of time to be allocated to physical activity for pupils.

The UK chief medical officers’ recommend that all children and young people should engage in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes every day. Schools play an important role in supporting children to achieve the physical activity recommendations. The Childhood Obesity Plan recommended that at least 30 minutes should be delivered in school every day through active break times, physical education (PE), extra-curricular clubs, active lessons, or other sport and physical activity events, with the remaining 30 minutes supported by parents and carers’ outside of school time.

The government does not set a target for how much curriculum time schools must dedicate to PE or specify the sports and activities that must be taught in schools. However, all maintained schools must teach a full programme of study for PE for all their pupils.