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What Do I Do?! PE & Sport Premium is Gone!
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
If you've seen the headlines and felt your stomach drop, you're not alone. It is an uncertain time for both schools and sports coaching providers. A lot of the schools we work with have had the same reaction: "the PE & Sport Premium is being scrapped, so we'd better cancel everything now."
The funding is changing, that is a fact, but the picture is more nuanced than "it's gone from September," and a knee-jerk cancellation could leave pupils worse off than they need to be.
Here's an honest read of what's actually been announced, what we still don't know, and what we'd suggest you do about it.
What's Actually Happening
On 21 May 2026, the Department for Education announced that the PE & Sport Premium, the grant primary schools have had since 2013, worth around £320 million a year, is being replaced.
The replacement is a new PE and School Sport Partnerships Network, backed by £580 million and due to be fully up and running from Spring 2027. Alongside it, the government has confirmed roughly £200 million in capital funding for school sports facilities, and a one-off £100 million PE Premium payment to support primary schools through the transition year.
So three things are true at once:
The Premium as you've known it is ending.
There is a replacement coming.
There is transitional money for primary schools in the meantime.
Two Things Worth Being Honest About
It's likely to be less money overall. Coverage of the announcement has put the total annual funding for the replacement scheme at around 22% lower than schools receive now. The transition payment is a one-off £100 million which is significantly smaller than the £320 million we're used to seeing each year.
The money mostly won't come to schools directly. This is the bigger structural change. Under the old model, the cash landed in a school's budget and the school decided how to spend it, including commissioning providers like uSports and other sports coaching companies. Under the new model, most of the funding is set to flow through the Partnerships Network, which will deliver support to schools rather than handing schools a pot to spend. How that interacts with any external coaching you currently buy in is one of the most important questions still to be answered.
What We Genuinely Don't Know Yet
The announcement is very recent and the full operational detail isn't published. As things stand, we don't have confirmed answers on:
Exactly how and when the £100 million transition payment will reach primary schools, or whether it arrives as an Autumn-term allocation.
What the Partnerships Network will actually offer schools, and whether schools will have any say in how that support is delivered.
How buying in external coaching will work once the Network is live.
The DfE has been asked for clarification on how these funding streams will be allocated, and we'd expect more detail over the coming weeks and months. We'll be watching GOV.UK and the official guidance closely and will update you as soon as anything firm lands.
Our Advice: Before you make any final decisions for 2026–27, check your own allocation and payment timings directly via GOV.UK or your local authority for Autumn 2026. Don't budget off a headline.
So, What Do I Do?
Here's the steadying part. September is not a cliff edge. The new Network doesn't become fully operational until Spring 2027, and there's a transition year specifically designed to bridge the gap. Schools don't have to dismantle their whole PE provision.
A few sensible steps for schools:
Don't panic-cancel. Cancelling everything now, before the transition-year detail is clear, risks leaving pupils without quality sports delivery for an Autumn term that may well still be funded in some form.
Confirm your numbers. Find out what you're actually allocated for 2026–27 before you commit to cuts.
Review, don't bin. If budgets are genuinely tighter, the answer might be a leaner arrangement rather than no arrangement. Keep the provision that has the most impact and revisiting in the spring once the Network's offer is clear.
Think about what the Network won't replace. A national support network is unlikely to provide the same on-the-ground, week-in-week-out relationship a familiar coaching team gives your staff and pupils. That continuity has value through a period of change, not despite it.
A Personal Note
I've worked in sports coaching since I was 15, and we've been running our coaching business, uSports, for the last nine years. In that time we've watched the PE & Sport Premium do an enormous amount of good since it was introduced back in 2013.
But here's the thing I'd reassure anyone of: sport in schools was there long before the Premium, and the power of sport will be there long after it changes. It is an invaluable resource, and no funding reshuffle changes that.
Were we gutted to hear the news? Yes, of course we were. But we reflect, and we adapt.
Schemes come and go; the value of giving a child a positive experience of sport doesn't.
That's our philosophy, and it hasn't moved an inch: we remain committed to providing as many children as possible with the opportunity to have a positive experience with sport.
A Final Thought
We're not going to pretend the funding landscape shifting isn't a worry as to how sport will look in the coming years, it is. But a transition year is exactly when a steady relationship matters most, and that's true whether you already work with a coaching provider or you're rethinking your sports provision currently.
Whatever you decide, the worst move is a rushed one made on a headline. Confirm your numbers, keep the provision that genuinely benefits your pupils, and revisit in the spring once the DfE publishes the detail.
A national network may bring useful support, but it's unlikely to replace the familiar, week-in-week-out relationship a good local coaching team gives your staff and children. So, weigh that up before you cut it.
If you'd find it helpful to talk any of this through: what's worth keeping, what a leaner transition-year arrangement could look like, or simply a second opinion on your options, we're always happy to have that conversation. No pressure, no selling: just a should to support while the rules get rewritten around all of us.
Charlie Hiscox
uSports Director
