South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt is confident that sport will continue to thrive in Surrey after the Prime Minister pledged to place competitive sport at the heart of the new Primary School curriculum. The new national PE curriculum, to be published in draft in the autumn, will require every primary school child to take part in competitive team sport like football, netball and hockey, and will include team outdoor and adventurous activity. It will also teach older children to compare their performances to achieve their personal best for the first time. A commitment to teach all children to swim will remain in the curriculum.
The Government has also run the first School Games this year, with more than half the schools in the country taking part and the finals held at the Olympic venues. The School Games are a key part of our approach to encouraging competitive sport in schools. Our aim is for all schools to participate and we will work with British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association to give every school and every pupil the opportunity to take part in the Olympic, Paralympic and other mass participation sports on offer.
The Government’s plans for Olympics legacy - set out in 'Beyond 2012' published in March - have been described by Jacques Rogge as 'a blueprint for future Games hosts'. They include £1bn over five years for youth sport, 1,000 local sports venues to be upgraded and 6,000 links developed between sports clubs and schools - so that every secondary school will have the chance of a link with a proper sports club. There are already 5,000 links set up and we will now expand this to cover an increasing number of primary schools.
Jeremy, who is also Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Olympics and Sport, believes the government has a coherent policy to ensure a lasting legacy from London 2012 and is determined to ensure London becomes the first host city to nurture a lasting legacy on the back of a hugely successful games.
Jeremy said: “We have always been determined to ensure a lasting legacy from the London 2012 games. We have protected funding for our elite athletes until the 2016 games in Rio and we have restored the National Lottery funding to its original purpose ensuring £500 million in funding for community sports facilities over the next five years. Alongside this the Prime Minister’s announcement this weekend is wonderful news for our next generation of sporting stars. It is crucial that we encourage participation in sport from a young age and use the inspiration of Team GB’s recent success to get children playing sport more regularly - which is what these proposals will achieve”.