England Netball are proud to be supporting the Youth Sport Trust’s National School Sport Week (NSSW) to champion the vital role play and school sport has in education.
Without access to opportunities through play and sport, a child is less likely to reach their full potential.
Over a million boys and girls of school age play netball at some point during a typical season.
In fact, we reckon that eight in ten of all women and girls have experienced playing netball at some point in their lives – most experiencing it for the first time at school in PE.
Indeed, the peak age for playing netball at school is 11 – half of all kids play netball at least once in a school year at this age.
Netball is a popular option for PE sessions among girls. From the question “If you had a choice, which three activities from the list below would you most like to do in PE?”
The top 10 responses from girls were:
| Trampolining | 25% |
| Dance | 22% |
| Swimming | 20% |
| Gymnastics | 18% |
| Netball | 17% |
| Dodgeball | 14% |
| Football | 14% |
| Cheerleading | 12% |
| Gym | 10% |
| Badminton | 9% |
*This is based on a (non-weighted) sample of 20,901 responses. Data: Youth Sport Trust and Women in Sport
NSSW comes just weeks after latest figures show childhood obesity to be the biggest issue of our time with more than a third of children in England overweight or obese by the time they finish primary school.
Ali Oliver, Chief Executive of Youth Sport Trust, said: “This year we are celebrating the role of play and sport in education to mark a decade of National School Sport Week.
“Taking part in PE and school sport translates to so many lifelong benefits for our health and wellbeing, so it’s time we got children excited about sport and play.
“We want our 10th year of National School Sport Week to reach as many children and young people as possible and create a step change in attitudes towards PE and school sport.”
For more information about the week visit www.youthsporttrust.org/national-school-sport-week.
Live action can be followed across social media using #NSSW.
Statistics (unless otherwise stated) taken from EN/YouGov Omnibus survey (2nd-7th April 2015) and EN/2CV Netball Landscape research (April 2017)
