Why PE must be as important as subjects like English, Maths and Science in school
The Covid-19 pandemic has left a lasting impact on children’s physical activity, with millions falling short of recommended exercise levels. Tim Hollingsworth, Chief Executive of Sport England, explores their latest survey which reveals stubborn inequalities and calls for a united effort to prioritise active lifestyles.
It’s hard to believe that the first national lockdown is only months from being five years ago.
Yet while it feels distant to many, for the pandemic generation, Covid-19 has had a fundamental and long-lasting impact.
Last week, Sport England published our latest Active Lives Children and Young People Survey Report.
The survey, which is one of the largest of its kind in the world, gives us fantastic insight into children’s relationship with sport and physical activity. It covers how active they are, the types of sport and activities they do and crucially their attitudes towards it.
Covering the 2023-24 academic year, the report revealed that overall activity levels were in line with our last survey – and that 47.8 per cent of children are meeting the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines of taking part in an average of 60 minutes or more of sport and physical activity every day.
Given continuing societal pressures the fact that activity levels are stable is somewhat positive, but with more than two million children doing less than an average of 30 minutes of activity per day across a week, there is nothing to celebrate.
Stubborn inequalities also remain, and a child’s ability to be active continues to depend on their gender, ethnicity, whether they have a disability or impairment, family affluence, and postcode.
Perhaps most alarmingly, our report clearly demonstrates the long-term impact of the pandemic and how Covid-19 is still having a fundamental impact on activity levels and, crucially, children’s attitudes towards sport and physical activity.
Children who were in nursery to school Year 4 (ages 4-9) when the pandemic struck in 2020 have been particularly disadvantaged.
This age group, now in school Years 3 to 8 (ages 7-13) when the survey was conducted, remain less likely to have positive attitudes towards sport and activity and have a lower sense of opportunity. They are also less likely to be able to swim 25m unaided and, unless we are able to do something about it, are at risk of carrying this disadvantage through their life.
Make no mistake about it, the challenge is huge – too great for any single organisation, sector or government department to solve alone – but with obesity levels rising, and cost-of-living damaging children’s health prospects too, one we must meet.
Because the wide-ranging benefits of sport and physical activity on children’s mental and physical health are clear: active children are happier, healthier, more confident and more resilient.
There isn’t a single silver bullet that will solve the issue, but we have always advocated for the importance of schools in promoting positive activity habits.
The recent Curriculum Review and subsequent recommendations provide an opportunity to build movement into every school day.
This means being active at school should be on an equal footing with English, Maths and Science, with dedicated and protected time for PE, and a redesigned PE curriculum to offer pupils a greater choice of activities.
Government guidelines recommend that children and young people do 30 minutes of their daily activity through the school day and 30 minutes outside of school.
Presently, just 45 per cent of children and young people meet the target of 30 minutes during the school day. 56 per cent of children are meeting the guidelines for activity outside of school hours.
Traditional PE lessons and competitive team sports work for some children, but not all. Given something being fun is easily the biggest driver of overall engagement, the PE curriculum has to provide positive experiences if it is to build the foundations for an active life.
More broadly we must normalise a whole school approach to enabling pupils to move more and be active. It is not just PE lessons that should encourage movement during the school hours. We should work towards creating active schools, requiring all schools to embed inclusive movement and opportunities for every pupil to be active through every school day.
An active generation is critical to the Government’s missions because active children turn into active adults, helping our NHS and improving the long-term health and wealth of our country.
Sport England will continue to play our part to solve these challenges, but we cannot do it alone. We look forward to working with everyone who cares about future generations to drive the changes we need.
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