According to a survey from the Youth Sports Trust, the gender gap between boys and girls who enjoy PE lessons in England is growing. Results from the survey show that 59% of girls in secondary schools say they enjoy PE, compared to a stable figure of 84% of boys. Girls’ enjoyment of PE in the same survey in 2016 was much higher, at 74%.
Two of the most common reasons given by the girls surveyed for not wanting to play sport are low confidence and periods. Two key reasons that the charity behind the survey, Youth Sports Trust, says should “raise alarm bells” for girls’ future activity levels and highlight the need for greater action to engage young women in sport.
The government has said that it is committed to ensuring that all children have the chance to develop a lifelong passion for sport. A Department for Education representative commented that its plans for improving girls’ access to sport included encouraging schools to offer a minimum of two hours of physical education a week. Over £600m of funding will be delivered over two academic years to help develop more school-sport opportunities for girls.
Nearly 25,000 children were interviewed for the annual survey, with responses from 18,500 girls and 6,000 boys aged between seven and 18 from schools across England. The figures from the 2016-17 survey also included answers from children in Northern Ireland and Wales. Despite the increasing proportion of girls who do not enjoy PE, Olympic pole-vault bronze medallist Holly Bradshaw said that the survey results were unsurprising. She added that she could empathise with the negative emotions associated with body-confidence issues and worries about being watched and judged by others, as she had struggled with similar problems during her time competing for Team GB
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