A survey by This Girl Can and Studio You, which creates resources for PE teachers finds that, girls skip twice as many PE lessons as their male peers during any given school term.
Two in five girls said that they did not enjoy PE lessons and only attended because they had to.
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Just under a third of girls felt these classes were “embarrassing” and “stressful”, while boys described them as “enjoyable”, “exciting” and “engaging”.
The main barriers girls encountered to enjoying PE lessons were their periods, with 45% of those asked saying they stopped them enjoying the classes, followed by the hassle of getting changed and feeling self-conscious.
Kate Peers, head of campaigns at This Girl Can and Studio You , said: “The lack of enjoyment girls get from PE is worrying, particularly with barriers holding them back focused around puberty and feeling self-conscious.”
Almost half of girls asked said that having a flexible kit would improve their enjoyment of PE.
This would involve having a range of flexibility within the school uniform policy, such as allowing students to wear looser fitting or darker clothing to address barriers around periods and feeling self-conscious.
Some 59% of girls said that they would enjoy PE more if they could choose the types of activities they took part in. This is one of the primary aims of Studio You, which provides a range of physical activity options via its Netflix-style digital library of lessons in multiple disciplines, including dance, combat, pilates and yoga.
“We know that PE teachers have it difficult. They have many different individuals in their class, some who love sports, some who really don't. Studio You is trying to really help teachers with resources that can try and engage all children, even the least engaged girls,” Peers said.
“We want to encourage girls to just try something new, because they might find that that's something they quite enjoy and can carry on for hopefully the rest of their lives.
“The more you enjoy something, the more you’re likely to stick with it. That enjoyment is a fundamental part of being active.”
She added: “We're trying to reduce what we're calling the ‘enjoyment gap’. We know that 2.4mn fewer women than men strongly agree they enjoy sport and physical activity, which is just ridiculous and should not be the case anymore. So, what we're trying to do is reduce the barriers that are there, in order to encourage more women and girls to be active.”
