Girls Week

Context, Intent and Target Group

Background Information

Working with a PE lead from one of my local junior schools, we identified a group of 10 Key stage 2 girls with low confidence in PE, who did not attend extra curricular clubs or sports competitions. The girls were invited to take part in a pupil voice session during a lunchtime to discuss what they would like from a school sports club. I wrote a short survey and went through each question with the girls giving them the option to talk about it or simply fill in the paper survey to remove any pressure to speak out loud. I laid out pictures on the floor to illustrate the sports given as choices within the survey, and emojis to establish feelings towards them. The questions asked included:

• How do you feel about PE?

• How do you feel about extra-curricular sports?

• How do you feel about sports competitions and events?

• Would you like to/not like to attend them?

• How does sport make you feel?

• What sports/activities would you like to try?

Based on the girls responses, we co-designed a three week girls only lunchtime club using the top 3 sports they chose - bench ball, tennis and dance.

After running the club, I surveyed the girls again to understand the impact on them and gain further insight. The questions asked included:

• How did Girls Club make them feel?

• What was their favourite/least favourite part?

• Would they be more/less likely to take part in an extra curricular club or competition as a result of attending?

The Key Stage 2 Girls Club had 100% attendance throughout, all the girls indicated the club made them feel ‘happy’ and ‘excited’ and 90% said they were more likely to attend a club or competition since attending the Girls Club. It also resulted in a 60% increase in the number of girls who felt positive about PE lessons. In addition to the survey, I consulted with the girls throughout the delivery of the club and established the factors which contributed to its success. Being a girls only environment was important as they felt emotionally safe and physically safe i.e. no balls flying around in the sports hall. The girls chose what they did with a high degree of consensus and continued to be involved in making decisions about what they did throughout e.g. co-designing and leading dance routines. As a result, they felt included, and that Girls Club was their club.

The success of this intervention inspired me to create a girls day event, focussing on inspiring and engaging girls to participate in sport and physical activity from schools all across my SGO area. The development of this one day event went on to inspire a full week of targeted girls events and intervention work, which we named 'Girls Week'

What was the aim of work?

The aim of the work was to develop the confidence, attitudes and motivations of girls towards PE, School Sport and Physical Activity, and increase regular participation through targeted intervention.

Which outcome(s) did it focus on?

• 1. To advocate and position the delivery of the CMO daily active minutes for all young people, as a universal offer to maintain and grow school engagement
• 2. To ensure all competition has a clear intent and creates positive experiences based on the motivation, competence and confidence of the young people that need our support the most
• 4. To support the personal development of targeted young people through youth engagement and leadership
• 5. To advocate and engage key stakeholders on the value of School Games to support local provision and improve the experience for young people and their families

Which expectation(s) did it meet?

• Using the national tool to complete and deliver a development plan covering the current academic year, updated once each term.
• Using the development plan to show how community connections will be made for young people to continue their participation.
• Using the events calendar to upload a termly offer of events and activities with a clear intent, updated once each term.
• Using local insight and youth engagement to identify young people and schools that would most benefit from a targeted School Games offer.
• Developing a case study to show where you have made the most impact against local priorities, and through effective storytelling share your learning locally and nationally.
• Collaborating with key partners to inform the local and county offer to tackle inequalities and ensuring inclusive and safe practice.
• Developing strategies to improve knowledge and understanding of the School Games for key stakeholders.
• Prioritising resources to implement meaningful youth engagement so young people have a voice and choice of opportunity.
• Work with schools to maintain and grow their active engagement in School Games.
• Identify schools that are not engaged and developing strategies to improve this.
• Develop a communication plan to boost the profile of the host site and demonstrates the value of school sport to other schools in the area.
• Establish a clear method of communication with all schools within the SGO area.
• Encourage the use of tools, such as School Games Mark, Inclusive Health Check and Active School Planner to help schools better understand their needs.
• Planning for and increasing delivery of 60 active minutes for every child.
• Provide an offer of professional development and communication for all schools to increase their understanding and increase their provision of 60 active minutes.
• Engage with a minimum of one secondary school to promote 60 active minutes practice, and share this within the county and where appropriate nationally.
• Co-design and deliver a broad and balanced School Games offer that is informed by insight and youth engagement and embeds positive experiences. It is expected that an SGO will facilitate a minimum of 12 targeted inter competitions/events/festivals with clear intent.
• Engage in county, regional and national networking by the Youth Sport Trust. This includes face-to-face and virtual support, Development Coach engagement, monthly updates and your termly review of your development plan.
• New SGOs are required to attend a national virtual and face-to-face induction during your first year of being appointed (ideally within your first term) and engage with your Development Coach.

Community links

• Active Partnerships
• Community sports clubs
• Leisure providers
• Local authority

Intent

The intent of the work was to develop girls confidence to participate in sport and physical activity and increase regular participation through targeted intervention.

Active Lives data shows us that girls are less active than boys. This information plus the identified children from the junior school motivated an intervention and promotion of girls sport across the city by:

• Co designing opportunities led through pupil voice
• Delivering targeted provision, creating  safe inclusive spaces for participation
• Using key stakeholders to support event delivery and promote exit routes into sport in the community

Target group

• Girls
• Primary Schools
• Targeted Groups of Young People

Aligns to Schools Games Intents of:

• Increase regular participation and motivation
• Engage new/target groups of young people (tackling inequalities)

Implementation

Following the positive impact of the Girls Club and insight gathered, I wanted to create an event for the original 10 girls and extend the reach to other low active girls across my SGO area. This originated with the planning of the Girls Day event which inspired the design of a full week of intervention and celebration of girls sport across the city.

I set up the Girls Day event, delivering trampolining, gymnastics and dance as these were all highly rated sports in the survey from the original intervention at the lunch club. The aim was for the girls to have an enjoyable and unpressured experience, sharing this with girls from other local schools and supported by secondary aged female sports leaders. This event was specifically designed to inspire and engage girls who were less involved in sport and physical activity at their schools and teachers were informed to choose children to attend based on this criteria. I chose to host girls day in a leisure centre that was local to my SGO area, and had exit routes into community participation for gymnastics, trampolining and football based at the centre itself. 130 girls joined us at the Girls Day with one teacher feeding back “Today was brilliant - if you could have seen the children coming back into school today, you'd have been amazed!  A huge thumbs up from us!”

As well as the Girls Day event, I collaborated with local rugby club, The Sheffield Eagles, and delivered a Girls Tag Rugby Festival at the Eagles home stadium at the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park. Female rugby legend Andrea Dobson MBE was on hand to help with refereeing, alongside two other female players from the Sheffield Eagles women's team. Flyers and information was shared after the event signposting the girls to local rugby sessions that they could access within the community.

Another collaboration with a local cricket club led to a girls cricket festival, based at the club itself who were looking to engage more girls within their provision. 18 female sports leaders from a local secondary school helped us deliver a fun day of cricket activities, engaging 10 schools and over 120 girls.

As well as the events, I recorded an online CPD for teachers on tips on how to engage more girls in school sport and physical activity, including the successes of the girls only lunchtime club, highlighting the power of pupil voice and co creation.

Girls Week 2024

Monday - Teacher CPD shared with all schools

Tuesday - Girls Rugby Festival in partnership with The Sheffield Eagles

Wednesday - Girls Day!

Thursday - Promotion of girls sport opportunities outside of school / within the wider community and character profiles shared of local women in sport shared with all schools

Friday - Girls Cricket Festival in Partnership with Bradfield Cricket Club

Key Stakeholders engaged and events supported by:

Sheffield Eagles Foundation 

Bradfield Cricket Club

Sheffield City Trust, Health and Wellbeing Charity

Sheffield Wednesday Community Foundation 

Yorkshire Sport Foundation (Active Partnership)

Impact

The original intervention through the co designed lunch club showed huge impact as a stand alone project with all the girls indicated the club made them feel ‘happy’ and ‘excited’ and 90% said they were more likely to attend a club or competition since attending the Girls Club. It also resulted in a 60% increase in the number of girls who felt positive about PE lessons. 

One of the girls who attended the original intervention through the lunch club has since competed in our Y5/6 Sports Hall Athletics Tournaments, running in the hurdles event. Sports Hall Athletics is one of our most competitive events of the year and to see her there representing her school with passion and confidence was amazing (and quite emotional!). She has also taken up a role as a sports leader in her school's 'Sports Crew' and now inspires and supports younger children at break and lunchtimes to be active. The transformation she has gone through from the girl I met in that original pupil voice session is incredible and shows the true impact the intervention and the support has had on her.

Girls Week engaged over 300 girls in sport and physical activity through the events hosted and collaboration with key stakeholders. The week was extremely well received and championed by schools who shared some feedback with me which I have included below.

“Girls' Day: A great opportunity for engagement. The children's faces as they arrived back at school said it all - just brilliant!”

“A wonderful event in itself, and has supported our goal of targeted activities for girls not currently engaged in school sport and physical activity.”

“Girls day - All children were fully engaged and i have had lots of comments of how much the children loved the day.”

“We got involved in the Girls Day and KS2 Girls Cricket Festival. Both events were fantastic and very well organised. A special mention must go to the Sports Leaders who supported both events as they were great role models and support the children brilliantly throughout the event. Overall, the children really enjoyed the experiences provided to them and they came back to school beaming.”

“We've shared the success of the week on our latest sports newsletter that got sent out to all parents/carers and uploaded onto our website.”

“The rugby was inspiring with having international and current women's players present. To have the tournament at the Eagles ground was fantastic for our children's aspirations.”

“It was fantastic to have such a variety in settings from the Eagles ground to Bradfield cricket pitch."

Challenges

Keeping up with the momentum and speed at which Girls Week grew! There is an incredible network of key stakeholders in Sheffield all working to develop women and girls access to sport any physical activity. I was extremely proud to have collaborated with some of these and celebrated local women in sport as well as showcasing opportunities for girls to participate within the local community.

Sustainability

The next Girls Week is already in planning with the development of an assembly to promote and motivate girls participation in sport, and collaboration with more key stakeholders across the city. This is now an annual event in the calendar with clear intentions and motivations to:

• Develop confidence, confidence and motivations of girls to participate in sport and physical activity 
• Collaborate with key stakeholders, increasing accessibility to girls sport within the community 
• Create safe inclusive spaces for girls to take part, breaking down barriers to participation

After the success of my girls week, I was proud to inspire the first ever Rotherham School Games Girls Week which has gone on to engage 100's more girls in school sport and physical activity across South Yorkshire.

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