New £1.5 million digital schools’ platform follows success of ‘This Girl Can’
With nearly a third (29%) of young people currently doing less than 30 minutes physical activity per day[i], and engagement amongst teen girls being the lowest of any group, Sport England is extending its ‘This Girl Can’ campaign – that inspired over 3.9 million women to get active – into schools. The organisation is investing £1.5 million of National Lottery funding into the creation of a new digital schools’ platform designed to reach girls who have disengaged from PE.
Sport England has partnered with behaviour change specialists Hopscotch – the agency behind the Department for Transport’s THINK! Road safety education resources and Vodafone’s Digital Creators’ Challenge – to lead a consortium of four agencies in the platform’s design and delivery to support schools in providing high quality, modern PE lessons. Other agencies involved include youth consultancy, Livity, digital build agency, OnToast and research agency, CHILDWISE.
Co-created with teenage girls, Studio You (https://www.studio-you.co.uk/) will give PE teachers across England access to a free digital library of alternative workouts designed to engage girls with physical activity, by inspiring them to feel more confident in a school PE setting.
Workout sessions will focus on disciplines that teen girls in Sport England’s focus groups found appealing, including yoga, boxing, dance, barreFit and Pilates.
The platform will be piloted in 20 schools across England in the autumn term of 2020, with plans to roll it out across England from February 2021. In line with the creative for the hugely successful ‘This Girl Can’ campaign, the new Studio You platform, which has the tagline ‘Press play. Have fun’, uses small groups of relatable real people and is focused on presenting sport as accessible, fun and rewarding. Footage for the workout videos and associated campaign was shot by an all-female production crew.
Jayne Molyneux, Director of Children and Young People from Sport England commented: “In focus groups[ii] girls who had disengaged from school sports used words like ‘competitive’, ‘forced’, ‘stressy’ and ‘repetitive’ to describe their PE lessons. The Studio You platform will help teachers challenge those perceptions by re-injecting all-important fun, choice and ownership into the PE experience for those that don’t naturally gravitate towards it.”
Julie Noble, Founder of Hopscotch and mum of two girls, said: “This is a campaign close to my heart. A negative experience of PE at school can set a damaging blueprint for an inactive life, but a positive experience can instil confidence and empowerment and give girls a lifelong love of physical activity and the benefits it brings.
“With the creation of this platform, we wanted to reframe physical activity as an enjoyable part of everyday life that is for everyone – not just the preserve of naturally sporty young people”.
For further press information, please contact:
Jack Ross at Pumpkin PR
jack@pumpkin.uk.com / 07946887450
Notes to editors
About Sport England
Sport England is a public body and invests up to £300 million National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport.
It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. That’s why a lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no, or very little, physical activity and groups who are typically less active – like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes.
About Hopscotch
Hopscotch is the leading specialist consultancy for original, insightful and imaginative education communications programmes. We create award-winning social purpose, marketing and education campaigns that reach, engage and inspire young people and their families. We deliver social impact, behaviour change, and educational excellence, as well as transforming the lives of young people. Our clients include Department for Education, The Gatsby Foundation, GSK, Transport for London, Kellogg’s, Vodafone and RNLI.
About CHILDWISE
CHILDWISE are an established, full service market research agency, specialising in research amongst children and young people. Our research spans the age range from pre-school to young adults, extending to those involved with children and young people, including parents, grandparents, teachers, and other youth professionals.
About Livity
Livity is a future consultancy and culture studio. We’re here to design a better future with and for young people. Because they are the talent, citizens and customers who define right now what’s coming next for everyone. Our clients include FootLocker, Audible, Nike, BT, Google and the Government.
About OnToast
OnToast.com are a leading development agency that specialise in supporting the design, ad and marketing industry and for both web and mobile application development. Through our unique White Label Service, OnToast have become a key provider and go to resource for many agencies across the UK.
[i] Active Lives Children and Young People Survey, Sport England (December 2019)
[ii] Sport England and Hopscotch focus groups run by CHILDWISE with teenage girls from London, Bristol, Leeds and Suffolk (January/February 2020) and Livity in London (February 2020)