Description
Girls Active is an award winning schools based intervention developed by Youth Sport Trust delivered in partnership with Women in Sport. It aims to tackle declining participation in physical activity by adolescent girls and its associated implications for health, wellbeing and academic attainment.
Girls Active is a partnership between teachers and girls working together to understand what makes girls fully engage in PE, sport and physical activity and enables them to work with girls through consultation, leadership and marketing to develop, sell and deliver inspiring and relevant opportunities for all girls.
Girls Active develops girls as leaders, empowering them to have influence through the use of peer marketing to improve the girls’ attitudes towards PE, sport and physical activity and to make the physical activity offering in school and after school more relevant to girls’ lives.
Girls Active is an annual process with girls and teachers working together to understand the girls’ preferences and motivations for taking part in PE and school sport. Girls Active starts with professional development for teachers, enabling them to reflect on practice and provision within school, supporting them to ensure that girls are integral to designing, marketing and delivering opportunities to their peers and helping them to develop relevant and attractive PE, sport and physical activity opportunities.
Results and impact
The project is ongoing, however in the very short time it has been running (since December 2016), the project has all ready had a significant impact.
Impact within Northern Ireland: Based on the results from the pre-intervention survey, the teachers and GLAMs groups have worked together very closely to form action plans, which has seen the introduction of new activities and ideas for improving the school PE, sport and physical activity offer for girls.
The GLAMs groups have been responsible for marketing the programme within each of their schools. This has included delivering presentations within assembly, designing notice boards for girls PE, using posters and marketing material highlighting female role models, and encouraging their peers to attend newly formed girls after school clubs.
Some activities that have been organised as a result of the pilot include: Colour Run / Obstacle Course Run; Fit 4 Summer Club (multisport club based on the girls preferences); ‘This Girl Can’ Multi-sport Club; Girls Soccer / Girls Rugby / Jive / Zumba / Boxercise / Tennis / Self Defence / Outdoor Pursuits / Archery / Trail Biking; Girls Active Sports Day; Primary School Transition Events; Inclusive Games Training for Girls Active Leaders
Type of activity
Programmes promoting activity
Dissemination of awareness tools and materials
Special events/days
Place: Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area.
Territorial level: Regional
Organizer: Girls Active is a Youth Sport Trust initiative delivered in partnership with Women in Sport across the UK. Within Northern Ireland Youth Sport Trust works in partnership with Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council to deliver the programme to schools in their area thanks to funding from the Department for Communities through Sport Northern Ireland.
Source: Awards: 2014 Body Confidence Awards – Winner in Physical Activity for Health Category, 2017 Women’s Sports Trust Annual Award in the National Inspiring Initiative category | Girls Active Survey 2015/16 National Report (Women in Sport) | Girls Active NI Inspiration Day Survey Results (Youth Sport Trust) | Girls Active Teacher Training Day Questionnaire Results (Youth Sport Trust) | Power of PE for Girls Evaluation Survey Results (Youth Sport Trust)