Sport England have released data from their Active Lives Children and Young People Survey today.
This report sought to explore and better understand not only the behaviours of children and young people, but also their attitudes towards sport and physical activity, and the extent to which being active links to levels of mental wellbeing, individual development and social and community development.
More than 130,000 children and young people were surveyed in the academic year 2017/2018.
Their 5 key findings were:
- Physically literate children and young people do twice as much activity: physical literacy being enjoyment, confidence, competence, understanding and knowledge.
- Enjoyment is the biggest driver of activity
- Physically literate children and young people are happier, more resilient and more trusting of other children and young people
- Physical literacy declines with age
- There are important inequalities that must be tackled:
- Girls are less likely to say they enjoy or feel confident about doing sport and physical activity. (58% of boys enjoy it, compared to 43% of girls. 47% of boys feel confident, compared to 31% of girls.) Among children aged 5-7, boys are more likely to love playing sport, while girls are more likely to love being active.
- Children from the least affluent families are less likely to enjoy activity than those from the most affluent families, and previous research shows they are also far less likely to be active.
- Black children are more physically literate than other ethnic groups – driven by boys, but they're less active than the population as a whole.
This data analysis will be used to create a market segmentation of children and young people in England, which will be shared by Sport England later in 2019
For more information and the full report, please visit the Sport England website below: