The Department is working to ensure that schools are fully supported as they welcome more children back to school and schools are able to give pupils opportunities to take part in physical education and be physically active during the school day. Schools are free to organise and deliver a PE curriculum that suits the needs of all their pupils whilst following COVID-19 government guidelines. The Department has now published guidance on plans for all children and young people to return to full-time education from September, which covers the provision of PE and school sport: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

The Department has made £650 million available to state-funded schools to support pupils to catch-up following extended school closure. The Education Endowment Foundation has published guidance to encourage schools to use this funding on evidence-led interventions, one of which might be summer catch-up activity. It is a matter for schools to decide how to spend the funding, based on their individual circumstances and brokering local partnerships with Voluntary and Community Sector organisation and other organisations to help them deliver. Precise details of how the catch up premium will be delivered will be confirmed shortly and we will confirm the timetable for publishing institution-level allocations in due course.

Government has announced that the school sport and activity action plan is expected to be published in spring 2019.

The plan will consider ways to ensure that all children have access to quality, protected PE and sport sessions during the school week and opportunities to be physically active throughout the school day.

We are working with Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Work and Pensions, Public Health England, the Health and Safety Executive and Sport England to explore the best way of engaging with employers of all sizes on improving health at work, including the promotion of physical activity. We are planning to meet with employers shortly to discuss this in more detail.

According to the Health Survey for England, in 2015 22% of children (23% of boys and 20% of girls) aged 5-15 met the physical activity guidelines of being at least moderately active for at least 60 minutes every day. This is higher than in 2012, when 21% of boys and 16% of girls met the guidelines. However this excludes school-based activities and active travel. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-physical-activity-guidelines.

As part of the government’s Sporting Future strategy, Sport England’s remit was extended to cover children from age 5+. Government departments including DCMS, DfE and DHSC have worked with Sport England to develop the new Active Lives: Children and Young People survey. This survey launched in schools in September 2017 and will measure in much more detail how children and young people engage in sport and physical activity, and how many are meeting the Chief Medical Officer's guidelines, both in and out of school. The first set of data will be available on 6 December.

It is important that all children have the opportunity to engage in physical activity and sport in a way that interests them. We want all primary school children to do at least 30 minutes of the Chief Medical Officers’ recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity at school.

As part of our Childhood Obesity Plan we are promoting a national ambition that every primary school should adopt an active mile initiative, which can be a good way for schools to achieve this aim. We support primary schools to enhance their Physical Education (PE) and sport provision through the PE and sport premium, which we have recently increased to £320 million per year using money from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. This money can be used to improve the PE, sport and extra-curricular activities offered by schools.

Other initiatives to encourage increased physical activity by primary age pupils outside the school day include the department’s Essential Life Skills Fund and Sport England’s Families Fund. Both programmes support children from low income families to access opportunities to develop competence and confidence in their ability to be physically active outside the school day.