Telegraph inspires girls’ fitness action plan
Minister praises campaign ahead of school proposals Funds will tackle inactivity crisis affecting pupils
The Telegraph has been credited with helping to inspire the Government’s new national strategy to tackle the inactivity crisis among schoolchildren and ensure more girls experience the life-changing benefits of sport.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds, launching the School Sport and Activity Action Plan, specifically referenced the powerful influence of the Telegraph Sport campaign “Girls, Inspired” and pledged new funds and a range of innovative measures to modernise physical education in schools, engage girls in sports and make physical activity a core part of every child’s day.
“Your campaign has helped to inspire us and I know it has also helped to inspire a lot of schools,” Hinds said. “It’s been a really important and helpful campaign. I very strongly commend you on it. We need to get this message to everybody.”
The Telegraph called in April for the Government to introduce specific measures that would tackle alarming inactivity levels that disproportionately impact on girls.
Research by the Youth Sports Trust showed that just eight per cent of girls aged between 11 and 18 are meeting the chief medical officer’s recommendation of at least a daily hour of activity – exactly half of a still worrying 16 per cent figure for boys.
Under the new action plan, which addresses the three aims of the Telegraph campaign, teachers will be urged to make sport and exercise an “integral” part of the school day by providing children with access to at least 30 minutes of activity and to recognise how physical literacy and “high-quality, modern PE lessons” transfer into better behaviour, wellbeing and academic attainment.
Schools will also be encouraged to introduce activities that appeal to a range of backgrounds, and particularly to less active groups and girls, with the Government launching a series of regional pilots to trial different approaches.
The plan, which has been formed across government departments, strongly reflects the principles of Sport England’s “This Girl Can” and the Youth Sports Trust’s “Girls Active” schemes, which emphasise fun and giving pupils a greater say and choice in activities offered.
A £1million digital resource will be developed that includes a new Netflixstyle library of workout videos as part of a move to offer activities such as dance, trampolining, climbing and Pilates alongside the more traditional team sports.
An additional £2.5million has been committed from this September to deliver extra training to PE teachers, help schools open up their facilities during weekends and holidays and expand sports volunteering programmes to give young people more access to coaching and mentoring opportunities as well as competitive sport. Sport England will also invest an additional £2 million to create 400 new afterschool “satellite clubs” to get more young people in disadvantaged areas active.
The Telegraph’s “Girls, Inspired” campaign, which has been backed by numerous national and international sports organisations, including Fifa, had specifically called for schools to
Continued from Page 1 empower girls and offer a wider choice through schemes such as “Girls Active” and “This Girl Can”.
It also urged government to put the vast benefits of PE on a par with core subjects, to ensure greater accountability and recognition of school sport through Ofsted, and to enshrine an equality of opportunity to sports so that girls do not miss out on what traditionally have been boys’ activities, such as football.
Today’s announcement includes a specific pledge from Ofsted regarding inspections from September 2019. “Schools that offer children a broad, balanced education, including plenty of opportunities to get active during the school day and through extracurricular activities, will be rewarded under our new inspection regime,” said Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of education.
The action plan also stresses that schools and sports clubs “will focus on ensuring boys and girls have an equal and coordinated offer of sport, competition and activity, including modern PE lessons and access to high-quality clubs and competitions after school and during weekends and holidays”.
The education department has confirmed that schools will introduce mandatory health education from 2020 that will start at primary school and stress the importance of exercise and healthy eating to physical and mental wellbeing. There is also an aim to halve childhood obesity by 2030.
“Our plan will help shift the dial in sport – I urge schools to put sport and physical activity at the heart of every school day, creating a cultural shift where it becomes routine in the daily lives of young people,” said Mims Davies, minister for sport.
The plan was welcomed in a joint statement by the Youth Sports Trust and a wide range of national sports governing bodies, but it emphasised that the next prime minister must maintain this commitment and called for improved support at the next spending review.
“Young people are in dire need of a long-term, joined-up approach to youth sport,” said the statement.