Development of the Merton PE & School Sports Mark

The Merton PE & School Sport Mark (PE&SSM) is an online self-improvement survey, designed by Merton School Sport Partnership (MSSP), which recognises and celebrates local schools’ commitment to high quality Physical Education (PE), physical activity and school sport, and the impact this provision has on pupils’ physical literacy, engagement, wellbeing and wider outcomes. The framework supports schools to reflect on their provision, identify strengths and priorities for development, and benchmark their current practice against a clear set of criteria. This process enables schools to evaluate how effectively PE, physical activity and school sport are planned, delivered and reviewed as part of a whole school approach.

Previously named the Merton School Sport Mark (MSSM), the newly redeveloped Merton PE & School Sport Mark (PESSM) has now been moved to an online platform.

Schools will complete and submit the online survey annually during the Summer Term. Once submitted, responses are reviewed and verified by the MSSP team. Schools that meet the locally agreed threshold criteria are then awarded Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum status at the end of the academic year. This status remains valid until the end of the following academic year.

The Merton PESSM is not a nationally recognised quality mark, but it does take into account the current national landscape and objectives for PESSPA. The survey was originally created by MSSP in September 2011, in spreadsheet format, following the cessation of government funded School Sport Partnerships and the National PESSCL Survey in March 2011.

The Merton survey was designed to maintain engagement and commitment to PE and school sport across the school network, at a time when MSSP was doing everything possible to sustain the local partnership. This aim has been successfully achieved, with over 90% of Merton primary and special schools completing the survey year on year since its inception. The survey is also used by Primary PE Coordinators to support their performance management processes and, with schools keen to be recognised locally, it has proved highly effective in driving improvement through aspirations to achieve Gold or Platinum status.

Building on this strong foundation, MSSP has continued to review and improve its work to better meet the evolving needs of local schools and to reflect advances in our understanding of what constitutes high quality PE and a whole school approach to physical activity and school sport. With more recent advances in technology, the previously named Merton School Sports Mark has been redeveloped as an online survey for the 2025/26 academic year. To clearly reflect its role in supporting all aspects of the PE curriculum and extracurricular school provision, it has been renamed the PE & School Sport Mark.

In 2025/26, MSSP commissioned its highly respected colleagues at PE Scholar to undertake this redevelopment. This has been a substantial piece of work, requiring significant time and collaboration from both PE Scholar and MSSP to develop a bespoke, scalable online model.

The new model enables MSSP to gather instant, anonymous data into a live spreadsheet from all school submissions. This data can be quickly analysed to report on outcomes and identify trends, particularly for marginalised and underrepresented groups. Crucially, it enables MSSP, as a partnership, to make evidence-based decisions about where support is most needed, to inform strategic targeting of work, to strengthen future funding applications and to better address issues of equity and inclusion. It also enables MSSP to celebrate the achievements and commitment of its affiliated schools.

While Merton values this tool for use with its own local schools, MSSP is also keen to support other local areas to develop their own partnership approaches to driving standards in PESSPA. Our intention is to enable other local School Sport Partnerships (SSPs) to use the online tool with their own schools. A licensing framework is currently being developed to enable other areas to benefit from this bespoke, user-friendly and robust data collection tool.