Written in July 2025 about the 2024 to 2025 return, which was due by 31 July 2025. For this year's reporting and grant conditions, check the DfE's PE and sport premium guidance.

If you’re frustrated or exhausted by the new PE and Sport Premium digital reporting tool, you are not alone. This year (2024 to 2025), for the first time, every primary school must complete an online return detailing their PE and sport premium spend by the end of July. Our community of school leaders has been sharing what works. The tips come first; what colleagues have said about the process follows.

Peer-Suggested Workarounds and Tips

These are suggestions from school leaders in the community, not DfE guidance.

  • Download and reuse your report: To meet the requirement of publishing your spend on the school website, you don’t need to create a whole new document. The digital tool lets you download your completed return as a PDF, and one head suggested simply uploading that PDF to your website instead of reformatting everything. (It appears the DfE isn’t forcing the use of their form on your site – one colleague noted that while completion is mandatory, publishing that specific form online is not; you can use your own format if you prefer.)
  • Governor sign-off without the fuss: Many asked whether the tool would email your headteacher or governors for “approval”. The consensus is no – it’s just a tick-box. The final section simply asks you to confirm that school leadership (head and governors) are aware of the report. “It’s just a ‘do they know’ question. No evidence needed,” one member explained, meaning there’s no automatic email and no extra uploading of minutes required. Brief your governors as usual and tick the box. (Tip: You can submit the first parts of the form now and come back to do the governor confirmation after your next governing body meeting – the system allows you to save and continue.)
  • Use remaining funds wisely (and in time): What if you haven’t spent all the money yet? The advice from peers: it’s not too late to put that funding to good use, as long as you do so before the deadline. For example, one new head with unspent PE money asked whether she could buy large construction blocks for EYFS to develop motor skills so late in the year. The feedback was yes – spend it on a legitimate need and get the form in by the cutoff. “By the deadline,” one colleague emphasised – as long as the purchase is made and reported by 31 July, you’ll be in compliance. (Do ensure they’re allowable expenses under the grant conditions, of course.)
  • Be flexible with categories: Real-world spending rarely fits the form’s predefined categories. The trick, shared by multiple colleagues, is to not overthink it – allocate each expense to the closest matching category, even if it’s not a perfect fit. “Best fit, guess work and a lot of make believe!” was how one head described the process, and honestly that strategy got many of us through. Another leader (an assistant head in charge of PE) pulled up their accounts ledger and entered each line somewhere in the form until the totals matched exactly. Some spending ended up under odd headings, but everything was accounted for in one category or another, and the final reported total was correct. Things will overlap or seem out of place, but if every pound is reported under some category, you’ve done your job.

(One more note on categories: After submitting, download copies of your final forms for your records. That way, if anyone (e.g. inspectors or curious parents) asks why you categorised X under Y, you have the data handy to explain. Several heads have kept their own breakdown that aligns with the old Key Indicator format, just for internal clarity – but that’s optional.)

What Colleagues Said About the Form

The online form is, as one head put it, “so long and complicated and slow”, taking many hours. Unlike the old templates, it seems to “jump all over the place”, with sections that don’t follow the usual key indicators. “It’s a blooming nightmare!” said one colleague: if you mis-code something you have to start again from scratch. The categories often don’t match real spending, leading to “best fit, guess work and a lot of make believe”.

Many reported error messages and the form crashing under heavy load. “Haven’t managed to complete it due to it crashing!” one leader noted. One colleague joked they were “waiting until most people have jetted off” on holiday before attempting the submission.

Others questioned the burden for a small grant: “I still can’t get over the amount of justification for a tiny % of the school budget. I have a £2.9m budget and have to justify the impact of the £20K sports premium. I’d rather they just take it from us ’cos the paperwork and faff isn’t worth the hassle.” One headteacher called it the “best 4½ days I’ve spent in headship completing that form”; another said it took “10000% longer” than the previous approach. In the last weeks of term, few heads have days to spare.

“Please help! I could cry!” wrote one head, who had already spent over 5 hours on the form. “It is so long and complicated… In school we categorise everything under each Key Indicator… however the form is not like this at all,” she explained. After a full day she wrote: “I actually think I am going to have a breakdown over this… I have been on this all day, read all the help documents and I am still none the wiser.” Dozens replied “Glad it wasn’t just me!”. It isn’t that you’re doing anything wrong: the process is confusing. One new head admitted they “haven’t started it yet… worried now!”, which brought supportive replies and tips. As one member said after finally finishing, “Glad it’s not just me – thought I was missing something obvious, but no, it really was that confusing!”

Colleagues have swapped screenshots and answers in real time, and a few experienced PE leads offered one-to-one help – “If you need any advice let me know… happy to answer any questions you have,” wrote one former headteacher turned PE advisor. If you’re stuck, ask in our HeadteacherChat group or ask a colleague.