Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I sincerely thank Senator Crowe for raising this matter and for the opportunity to reply on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne. The Department of Education and its support services continue to support all schools and teachers to deliver the full breadth and balance of the curriculum. Physical education is a core part of the curriculum at primary level, which seeks to satisfy the physical needs of the child through a consistent and comprehensive experience of movement and play that challenges the child to realise his or her individual physical potential.

It is the position of the Department of Education that all qualified primary teachers are qualified to teach the full spectrum of the primary curriculum, including physical education. Primary teachers undertake elements of physical education as part of their teacher training. Oide, the Department-funded teacher education support service, offers extensive professional learning and resources to support the professional learning of primary teachers. In particular, Oide has provided a suite of supports to teachers to implement the fundamental movement skills programme, Move Well, Move Often, since its launch in 2017. This programme complements the teaching of the physical education curriculum at primary level and aims to provide a range of tools to support teachers in teaching skills such as running, throwing, catching and jumping to all children, as the Senator has laid out. In 2023-2024, Oide provided professional learning opportunities to teachers in the teaching of gymnastics and games. These professional learning opportunities focus on how physical education contributes to pupils' movement competency and overall well-being.

The new primary curriculum framework, PCF, published on 9 March 2023, guides the development of the specifications for each of the curriculum areas. The development of the well-being specification, which is to include physical education, is under way and will be completed for introduction into schools in the 2025-2026 school year. To support this, Oide is currently developing a professional learning framework which will be made available to all schools for the rollout of the new well-being specification.

The Department is committed to providing funding to all recognised schools in the free education scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are: the capitation grant to cater for day-to-day running costs such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general up-keep; and the ancillary grant; to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. Schools have the flexibility to use capitation and ancillary funding as a common grant from which the board of management can allocate according to its own priorities. The current standard rate of capitation grant is €200 per pupil in primary schools.

In addition to these grants, €20 million in funding was issued in October 2023 to support all recognised schools in the free education scheme. This funding was the first tranche of an overall additional €60 million funding announced as part of budget 2024 measures, designed to assist schools with increased day-to-day running costs such as heating and electricity. A further €40 million in funding was delivered in early 2024.

As part of the capitation package in budget 2024, the Minister is pleased to have secured €21 million as a permanent increase in capitation funding to assist schools now and longer term with increased day to-day running costs. This supports a permanent restoration of funding for all primary and post-primary schools from September of this year. This brings the basic rate of capitation grant to the pre-2011 level of €200 per pupil in primary schools and €345 per student in post-primary schools. Enhanced rates are also paid in respect of pupils with special educational needs and Traveller pupils. This represents an increase of circa 9.2% of current standard and the relevant enhanced capitation rates.

Working with the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, the Department was also pleased to secure additional funding for the delivery of physical activity initiatives in schools, including the expansion of the active school flag programme and the delivery of a new pilot programme, examining the integration of physical activity into teaching and learning.