School sports cuts: David Cameron’s statistical sticky wicket
The claim
“What we experienced over the last decade was a lot of money being put into school sport but without seeing a lot of progress.”
David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Questions, 24 November 2010
The background
The issue of sport in schools is being slugged out in the political arena – and Michael Gove’s plan to axe the £162m budget for the Schools Sports Partnership met with outrage from teachers and Olympians alike.
Labour leader Ed Miliband, fresh from paternity leave, stepped up to the plate at PMQs today, calling the cut a “daft decision”.
David Cameron retorted that we didn’t see “a lot of progress” under Labour’s strategy, which had resulted in “wrapping teachers and schools in red tape”.
But has the prime minister scored an own goal with his figures?
The analysis
Mr Cameron fired off a volley of school sports stats around Parliament today – and some of his numbers caught FactCheck smack in the eye.
Types of sport offered
“Let me give him one figure,” came the familiar build-up from the Prime Minister. “The number of schools offering rugby, hockey, netball and gymnastics actually fell under the previous government.”
Well, yes, the Schools Sports Survey shows that fewer schools are offering these sports in 2009/10 than they were in 2003/04 when the survey started – somewhere between a one and five per cent reduction. But there’s nothing like picking the statistics that suit your argument.
Over the same period the number of schools offering rugby league (as opposed to rugby union), football, dance, athletics, cricket, tennis, fitness classes, basketball, orienteering, cycling, golf, badminton, table tennis, volleyball, canoeing, archery, martial arts, mountaineering, judo, rowing, sailing, karate, boxing, lacrosse, squash, bowls, equestrian sports, triathlon, skateboarding, and angling have all gone up. The number of schools offering swimming has stayed the same.
In total, the average number of sports offered by a school has risen from 14 to 19, according to the Youth Sports Trust.
Playing competitive sport
Next, David Cameron looked at competitive sport – saying only two in five pupils played competitive sport regularly in school. “That is a terrible record,” he said. He added that only one in five children play regular competitive sport against other schools.
Note that word “regular” that the Prime Minister uses. The Schools Sport Survey defines this at least three times a year for 7 to 11 year olds and at least 12 times for 12 to 16 year olds competing in internal school competitions. And for inter-school competitions, “regular” means three times for 7 to 11 year old pupil and nine times for 12 to 16 year olds.
In the last academic year 39 per cent of pupils “regularly” took part in competitive sport within their school – the two in five pupils Mr Cameron talked about – but that’s up from 28 per cent of pupils the year before.
Likewise, last year 21 per cent of pupils “regularly” took part in competitions between schools, but this number was only up slightly from 19 per cent the year before.
If you look at the number of pupils that take part in any competitive sport in the academic year, it tells a different story. The total number of pupils taking part in competitive sport within their school was 78 per cent in 2009/10, up from 58 per cent in 2006/07. And 49 per cent of pupils took part in any competitive activities against another school, up from 35 per cent in 2006/07.
Playing any sport
David Cameron’s parting statistic was to say that “last year the proportion of 11 to 15 year olds playing sport went down”.
This is from a different survey – this time from a Department for Culture Media and Sport statistical release.
It shows a tiny fall in 11-15 year olds taking part in active sport in and out of school in the seven days before the survey – from 88.8 per cent in 2008/09 to 88.0 per cent in 2009/10. The number of 5-10 year olds taking part in sport outside of school alone, meanwhile, increased from 74.7 per cent to 77.9 per cent. These results are based in a survey of 537 children of all ages.
Going back to the Schools Sports Survey, which includes responses from 99.8 per cent of schools, it shows that the number of pupils taking part in at least three hours of school sport increased across all school year groups, including those for 11 to 15 year olds. The same goes for the number of pupils taking part in two or more hours of sport.
The verdict
So Mr Cameron got his numbers right, but he was certainly playing the staistical field. Has there been “a lot of progress”? Well, we’ll leave you to decide how you quantify “a lot”, but there certainly has been an increase in schools sport over the last seven years.
There are 13 comments on this post
When will he [Cameron] stop lying to the public. They lied to us before the elections to get our votes and they continue after the election to deceive us.
The entire political system is collapsing as the public can no longer make any informed decision or an informed opinion as the information our politicians are giving us is just fraudulent.
Last year all politicians were concerned that the public held them in such low esteem. Yet they continue to behave so badly, can they ever expect people to have any respect for them. I suppose I am being naive in that they were concerned about public opinion as an election drew closer and now we have over 4 years until another is due.
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Great Blog! I just wish someone would challenge them on these stats whilst they are talking about it!
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All Cameron does with this is reduce our trust in poliicians still further. haven’t any of them yet learnt that we’d rather they spoke the truth – even if unwelcome & unhelpful to their case – rather than the consistent obfuscation, partial & misleading use of information. Indeed, if Ed Milliband wants to make a profound change in the Labour Party, he should start with a commitment to be open & honest – & then remain true to it.
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Laura
I am sure that Labour would like the real figures to quote! Any way the SSPs do massive amounts to organise competitions. My school’s SSP organised a table tennis tournament, my rugby team had a tournament (although the great Northern weather meant it had to be cancelled). The SSPs do an extrodinary amount for organising fixtures and competitions, as well as much of the training for the young leaders who officiate and lead these events. If they go most of this work will go because us PE teachers already have too much going on. The key thing that many of the politians are missing is that many events or coaching sessions are organised with the local clubs. Many of the kids who enjoy an activity will then move into the club system… this is a major aim of the SSPs and the new ’5 hour of sport and PE (in or out of school)per week’ theme! Taking away the SSPs would be a massive step backward which would affect the activity levels of many youngsters! It cannot be allowed to happen!
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Cathy,
Nothing unusual about Cameron’s method. It is classic bare-faced Tory lying in the face of facts, something New Labour also adopted when they were in power – and now Clegg has been caught with too.
The biggest example is John Major’s reaction to the Scott Report on Arms To Iraq. The report exposed fully how the British Establishment and its Military-Industrial Complex was up to its neck in corruption and misery at the expense of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives.
When the report was issued Major simply stood up in parliament and announced it exonerated the government! None of the other politicians had the courage to contest the issue.
Cameron, like Major, simply lies his head off. Meanwhile, Gove, a congenital moron if ever there was one, simply follows the public school boy rout prescribed for him.
Nothing new there, then.
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I reported on Channel 4 news last Sunday about stats being ‘spun’. Lambeth SSP were at 58% last year and Nationally it was a lot higher for competitive opportunities.
The lies and the ignorance of people ‘voted – in’ by a Nation is the most worrying element here. Thankfully, after this period in office I doubt they will be elected back in and we can start again with a Government who appreciate sport, physical activity, health and leadership.
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Cameron should be forced to apologise for his selective misuse of statistics during PMQs next week.
Remember all that hand wringing about needing to win back trust? Nothing has changed.
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If only Sue Campbell or somebody from the YST with the actual statistics could have been at PMQT. We need somebody to expose the conservative government for misuse of statistics and highlight the power of school sport partnerships. If only the government could see past the political spin and see the value of SSPs for young people.
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The other point about inter-school competitive sport is the number of people in a team.
Back in the late 50s and 60s, I went to a very sport orientated school and played against other schools nearly every week. But most of my school mates didn’t because tehre were only 15 places in the team.
Cameron et al seem to have suddenly discovered teh merits of competitve sport. Could we please know how many of them were in Eton teams against other schools?
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Do you think Gove disliked sport when he was at school?
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we need to keep this!
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I thought this was a democracy, not Camerons ‘Neverland’.
Government profits from the VAT increase from your food alone comes to profits of 1 billion a week pocket money for David Camerons government.
And they can’t even account for a single penny of the 6.2 billion a year spent on the new British space program, infact they can’t even produce a single employee.
Add this to spending cuts that will render 4 million unemployed making an unemployment record high, and then consider he is going to force half a million sick people back to work and off of benefits.
He isn’t saying ‘thank’ you to civil servants and he is turning people against each other!.
I don’t think a 10p rise in fuel prices over ‘x y z’ years justifies the way this illegal government and affiliated corporations have bleed every penny from the UK civilization, do you ?
We know we own the competitions fuel pumps now, and further to this BP are the worlds most profitable fortune 500 oil company!.
He is like a vampire octopus wrapped around the face of England cutting everything back like a child in a sweet shop apart from the most important thing, his job.
Cameron is a manic that is…
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