Olympic Legacy and School Sport Partnerships

It has been more than two years since the multimillion-pound closing ceremony of the ￡12bn Olympic Games. In that time sport and physical education in schools has suffered and is no-where near the levels that it used to be. Last year, in order to counter this trend David Cameron announced an "Olympic legacy boost" for school sport – ￡150m, to cover all the 17,000 primary schools in England.

This was, at least, something – two and a half years after the education secretary, Michael Gove, vandalised school sport, putting a red line through ￡162m funding for a system that was working very well. In the run-up to the Olympics, hosted by London on a promise from Tony Blair and Sebastian Coe that it would inspire a new generation, the School Sport Partnerships (SSP) structure, which organised and promoted sport across schools, was destroyed.

Developed by the Labour government under the guidance of Dame Sue Campbell, to rebuild sport in state schools, where it had deteriorated pitifully under the Conservatives in the 1980s and 90s, the ï¿¡162m funded a specialist school sport co-ordinator for two days a week, stretched locally across 450 SSPs to reach all schools.

The results, after the Tory years of decline, were startlingly good: more than 90% of pupils in 2009-10 had two hours of PE a week restored, and 78% took part in competitive sport.

The outcry against Gove's cut, by teachers, the Youth Sport Trust, which organised the SSPs, and sports professionals, led to a partial restoration of the funding: ï¿¡32.5m each for 2011, 2012 and 2013 when the funding was initially due to end. It was intended to allow a reduced form of SSPs, but the money was not protected for sport, and half the SSPs perished, according to the Youth Sport Trust.

Cameron's government also abolished the school sport survey, so the effect of the cut on provision could no longer be measured. However, in a survey last year by the cricket development project Chance to Shine, 54% of parents said their children were doing less than two hours PE a week, a startling decline. This was followed by Ofsted to publishing a report, Beyond 2012: Outstanding Physical Education for All, which vindicated the positive work done by the SSPs.

"Funding for school sport partnerships ended in 2011," Ofsted noted. "Evidence is that these partnerships had left a notable legacy in the vast majority of secondary schools and their feeder primary schools over the last four years."

The ￡150 million legacy boost was welcomed by schools, however this has left many schools in an unwelcome predicament. Namely…”what do we spend this on?”

The infra-structure has gone. The PDMs, who on the whole were trained Physical Education teachers have left the building, off to pursue ventures where their incredible good work and skills will be appreciated and they have job security. To fill the void we have a team of Competition Managers, who, on the whole are not trained Physical Educators, instead this team of highly motivated and perceptive individuals are, in many cases, now trying to rebuild SSPs around the competition framework.

Indeed these efforts should be applauded, however, up and down the country there remains inconsistency in delivery and some shocking Service Level Agreements that many primary schools are blinkered into signing up for.

My personal research into this has shown some stunning examples of poor management of these new partnerships. I have discovered:

• Schools being charged upwards of ï¿¡5,000 for the SLA which provides them with a range of set services, many of which are unwanted by primary headteachers, and very small amounts of on-site PE delivery, often amounting to less than 60 hours in an academic year!
• One partnership that advertised for, recruited and used unpaid interns to develop primary school curriculums in order that it could offer an extended range of school sport services. These interns, with no training in Physical Education or for that matter in teaching, were producing resources that were obviously quality assured by their Competition Managers, however in this case neither of the CMs had any formal teaching or Physical Education training themselves.
• Significant numbers of new partnerships include L2 competitions as part of their SLA, and when reading some of these SLAs it might appear that unless a school was a paid up member of this partnership that they would be unable to enter a L2 competition. Whereas L2 competitions ARE free for all schools to enter regardless of whether they are members of a partnership, this funding has been provided centrally and it is the Competition Manager’s responsibility to get all schools engaged in the Sainsbury’s School Games programme.

So why are these new partnerships so expensive and offering such poor services to primary schools? In all honesty it is too complicated a picture to answer, and I am certainly not going to stereotype all partnerships in the same manner. My findings have shown that there are exceptional models out there as well, to name but one would be detrimental to others, however I visited the Salford partnership last year and found it to be exceptional, still managed by Physical Education teachers in the role of a PDM working seamlessly alongside its Competition Managers in providing an exceptional service to its schools. However this in not a National picture and there is little consistency across the country.

Many of these poorer value for money partnerships are still being run from secondary schools who used to be known as Specialist Sports Colleges, before Mr Gove scrapped the Specialist Schools Programme. Funding for these schools has been cut dramatically and many, who still have good intentions in driving school sport across their local authorities, simply to not have the financial clout in order to be able to carry out these intentions.

My research found one example of a former Sports College who had been forced to make dramatic cuts, setting up a new partnership offering extended services in PE and School Sport to primary schools in its LA who were using the partnership money generated by SLAs to primary schools to supplement its own income. Not in an overt manner but by simply charging the partnership (i.e. the Competition Managers) for facility hire, equipment, resources and even as far as rental of an office space and utility charges.

Primary schools need an alternative. One primary school I visited last year was receiving ï¿¡9,000 in PE and School Sport funding, its headteacher and staff had little idea of how to spend this money effectively and over half went to its local SSP for a handful of delivery hours and some training for staff. The other half was spent on equipment and playground markings. Are the children getting an enhanced Physical Education experience from this? From my visit to the school I have to say that they were not.

Primary schools need a partnership that is value for money, that provides them with much more than a handful of hours of delivery time and they need an SLA which can be tailored to meet their specific needs – in other words a menu of support that they can select from. They no longer need management heavy partnerships whereby their subscription merely entitles them to subsidise management costs; enter competitions that they already have a free entitlement to; and access services that they do not need.

With this in mind I would like to share with readers the new partnership model developed by Physical Education & Active Sport (PEAK). PEAK is my own company and will be operational from March 2015. Our partnership offer for schools has been priced competitively and will provide a minimum of 210 hours of on-site delivery. Headteachers are able to pick and mix a range of additional services and will be guided by myself and my partner, who between us have nearly 40 years’ worth of experience at the top table in Physical Education. Full details of this partnership offer can be found at https://www.peak-sport.co.uk/#!peak-partnerships/c1az7 and if you are a Primary School teacher or headteacher I will guarantee that our partnership offer will be significantly more enticing than your current one.