How our Sector is About to Change!

Physical Education & Active Kids, along with a number of other high-quality PE providers across the country, have been calling for industry regulation in our sector for many years now. The fact of the matter currently is simply that ANYONE can set up a coaching company and offer their services to schools! There are legions of (generally) L1 Football Coaches who hawk their services to schools. Other than any standards that the client school set the company is not required to ensure that their coaches have anything other than an enhanced DBS (even this is not a regulated requirement)!

This lack of regulation does not solely impact upon the learning of the children that the (potentially) unqualified coach is teaching, it has also impacted for many years on the reputation of the sector and the subject of PE itself. Too often schools simply utilise a PE delivery company as ‘easy’ PPA cover with decisions made about procurement often made solely upon cost effectiveness and NOT the QUALITY of teaching and learning.

We are pleased to inform schools in the North-East that – THIS IS ABOUT TO CHANGE!

In its ‘Coaching Plan 2.0’ Sport England have (finally) recognised that regulation is required in the external PE provision sector. They have engaged CIMSPA to lead the revolution. CIMSPA is the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity and they are the professional development body for the UK’s sport and physical activity sector. Their vision is to shape a respected and recognised sector and to ensure that companies within the sector place staff development at the core of their business.

Their CEO, Tara Dillon, recently told the public,

“We are shaping the future of the sport and physical activity sector in the UK, with a far reaching and comprehensive strategy. We look forward to working with our partners and the entire sector to step forwards into the future stronger together.”

PEAK are delighted to announce that we are just about to begin our journey towards becoming a CIMSPA Employer Partner as we look to embrace this first step towards regulation of our industry. This will mean that our PE Educators will be able to develop their skills towards ‘Chartered Coach’ status.

There is, of course, the opportunity still for schools to utilise their own teachers to deliver their PE curriculum and there are many primary teachers who excel at delivering PE. But PE is SO different to the teaching of virtually any other National Curriculum subject and offers a far greater range of learning outcomes than any other subject and specialist primary PE educators are masters in all of this. It will always remain the prerogative of the school’s management as to whether it chooses to provide the best possible teaching in the subject or simply direct it’s teaching staff to deliver all of it’s PE lessons.

The IMMEDIATE changes are that from 2022-23 CIMSPA has published deployment requirements for coaches to be able to work in schools – these can be found at https://www.cimspa.co.uk/our-work/minimum-deployment-requirements. Of course schools do not, yet, have to insist on their PE provider deploying a coach with the required qualifications – they can still, of course, prioritise cost over rapidity of learning.