This Government are committed to the expansion of competitive school sport. The PE national curriculum requires that all pupils are taught competitive games throughout their compulsory schooling. Competition is also a key component of the national school sport strategy. The 2005-06 school sport survey found that:
71 per cent. of pupils are now participating in intra-school competitive activities and 37 per cent. of pupils are taking part in inter-school competition. Both figures have been rising year on year;
97 per cent. of schools held a competitive sports day in the last academic year and the network of school sport partnerships staged over 10,700 festivals of sport—multi-sport events organised by secondary pupils for partnership primary schools.
In addition, the Prime Minister announced on 13 July extra funding to extend the network of competition managers. This will see the number of competition managers rise from the present 59, to a national network of 225 by 2010. The competition managers are creating a stronger framework for competitive sport and working across primary and secondary schools to increase the amount of competitive sport they offer.