The Department for Education should make it “far clearer” that primary school heads experiencing technical issues reporting their PE premium spending will be able to get support in September, the NAHT school leaders’ union has said.

For the past few days, primary headteachers have been warning of difficulties in using online forms to report how they have spent their PE and sport premium grant in 2024-25. The deadline to fill in the form is 31 July.

The DfE updated the webpage to say that it is aware that some users are having problems, and that it is “looking into this as a matter of urgency”.

One senior leader, posting on social media platform Bluesky, said that the form had continuously crashed after they attempted to start it at 6.30am.

The DfE added in an update to a different page yesterday that despite the issues, the deadline of 31 July will remain, but schools affected by these difficulties will be contacted in September to support them in filing the return.

Schools struggling to report PE premium spending

The NAHT has taken issue with the initial advice given to headteachers.

“It is completely unacceptable that school leaders were advised to log on before 8am or after 6pm, change browsers and clear cookies in an attempt to circumvent these entirely predictable issues,” said Ian Hartwright, head of policy at the union.

“Following our conversations with the DfE, we have had confirmation that leaders who are experiencing issues, or who are now on holiday, need not worry about entering this data by the original 31 July deadline and will be able to access support to do so throughout September.

“This is what we are advising members, but DfE needs to make this far clearer publicly, as well as emphasising that no school will be sanctioned or disadvantaged, and ensuring this problem is resolved in the meantime.”

Mr Hartwright added that the practice of schools having to report the use of the funding should not be necessary and it drives “intolerable levels of workload”.

“If the DfE insists on forcing schools to do this, the least they deserve is a system that works and does not add to stress and workload,” he said.

The DfE has been contacted for comment.

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