Changing the Mindset of Girls' Sports

In this week’s blog, we caught up with an advocate for women in sport , Dani Mugridge, Director of Sport at Lady Eleanor Holles School and assistant coach for the English netball team, Surrey Storm. Dani contacted We are Girls in Sport as she supports and believes in our campaign to introduce more girls to the wide variety of sports out there.

Dani, please tell us about how you developed your passion for sport?

Looking back, even as a teenager, I always knew I wanted to be a PE teacher. I had positive female role models at school in my PE teachers and even from the young age of 14, I loved sport. I had geared myself for what I wanted to do and knew I would need to go to college and university to get there. When I told my dad, he said “No, you need to go and get a job at 16!”- but I challenged that outlook and followed what I really wanted to do. This is where I am, so it’s worked out for me!

My parents weren’t particularly sporty. In my late teens my mum got into swimming and my dad loved his golf. I guess I didn’t really get my sportiness from them, and I often question where the passion came from. I loved sport from junior school onwards and always threw myself into every sporting opportunity and team! No matter what the sport was, I was always willing to give it a try!

As a teenager, I just loved all sports. There was hockey and netball in the winter then I spent the summers playing rounders and athletics. I remember playing badminton, swimming and enjoyed everything, though my true passions were always netball and athletics. From my early twenties, I participated competitively and now continue to coach them both.

I went to the University of Chichester (UK) where my degree was Physical Education with QTS, a four-year course supporting both sport and teaching. Personally, I’m so glad I took this course because I learned so much along the way.  

Tell us about your role as a Director of Sport?

I’m now the Director of Sport at an independent girls’ school, Lady Eleanor Holles in Hampton, Middlesex, (UK) which has been really enjoyable since I’ve been here. I teach in the senior school which is from Year 7 through to sixth form (years 12 and 13). In total we have around 1,000 girls on a 25 acre site, with many courts, both for tennis and lacrosse, plus a fantastic indoor sports hall and swimming pool. The girls that come here have a lot of opportunities for different sports.

“I love the fact that I can switch my mind off and only concentrate on the sport I’m playing. I love winning and succeeding after I’ve tried hard. I like team sports, especially netball and have just started to play lacrosse, but I also love swimming and gymnastics. I find all sports exhilarating!”

Y7 student, Lady Eleanor Holles

On school campus, I see so many girls with amazing personalities. I have been teaching for over 20 years, across seven different co-ed and single sex schools. During that time, I’ve seen great diversity across all the schools I’ve worked in, with sporty girls, and not so sporty girls. I was recently reading about young girls and their sporting role models and I think a girl’s perception of sport is so important.

Often, girls can be put off sport from such a young age by someone saying something which could be perceived as negative such as, “We’re doing football today, the girls aren’t going to like it”- whereas many teachers and coaches are recognising that girls’ football is now actually huge in this country. Here on school campus, we give girls from the age of seven (in the junior school) an amazing sporting programme. We aim to engage them, and I think that the majority of our girls are pretty excited about sport. Yes; we have a small number of girls who might be a bit nervous or may lack sporting confidence - but we nurture them. We bring them through and make sport fun! My main philosophy is: sport must be fun. It doesn’t have to be tiresome and difficult, and it makes me sad to hear the words “I’m not very sporty”, because sport doesn’t have to be hated. Forgetting the competitive aspect, I think we have to focus on how we get young children to enjoy sport, for its health benefits - and for the fun.

Returning back to sport post-pandemic, I want to make sure the limitations placed on the department don’t stop sport being enjoyable. We want to deliver sport in the best way. We want to provide a positive environment that allows for mistakes and allows for the girls to overcome them. Practice makes progress. We see the light in someone’s eyes when they overcome something they’ve been scared of or working on for such a long time - and that is why I love sport. We can change a mindset and believe in ourselves!

I think it’s the positive teachers and coaches that have got to be there for our girls at a young age, providing that confidence for them. Girls are more likely to worry about failure than boys, and that is why we allow for mistakes to happen. It’s easier for girls not to do something, for fear of failure. We need to change this mindset and teach girls that it’s okay to fail!

Photo credit: iStock

How did you get into your role as an assistant coach for English netball team, Surrey Storm?

When you love something, and you’re passionate about it, it doesn’t become a chore. After work twice a week, I train with Surrey Storm and when season kicks in, our fixtures can be any days really. This means I tend to juggle a lot between school and netball coaching. It’s important to me that I do both, because promoting girls’ sport is so important. This is one of the reasons I love We are Girls in Sport!

Since lockdown, keeping motivated in sports has been difficult for everyone. The team has been keeping in touch regularly, and with so much time on our hands everyone has kept up their individual fitness. Come October 2020, when netball is (hopefully) allowed to train again, we need to encourage a healthy re-introduction to play. We need to ensure muscles and joints are not suddenly strained, but most importantly keeping an eye on players wellbeing is encouraged. The team has resembled a great family over this period, checking in on each other, which is vital.

In your opinion, why are so many girls dropping out of sport in their early teens and how can we encourage them to give sport a try again? 

On average, some surveys report that girls seem to drop out of sport at age 15/16. I wonder if part of this is because within schools, we encourage playing fixtures in certain sports, which often don’t tick everyone’s boxes. We need to be more diverse in what we offer in sports, though this is dependent on curriculum, budgets and staffing of course. I know that netball and lacrosse aren’t going to tick everyone’s boxes, so I try and think up ways I can engage the other girls for a longer period, and throughout their education with us. Collectively, we need to ensure lots of different clubs are available for young girls to offer them the widest choice.

I also think body image can play a part in the drop out rate too. Come early teens, girls often will start to become conscious of their red face and sweat in sport. For me, I’d rather be sweating because it means I’m working hard; but I know others don’t think in this way. Furthermore, upon leaving school and starting university we see another peak in dropouts. We need to expose more sports to young adults to encourage continuation in sports after school.

Photo Credit: Netball Draft Central / Vitality Netball Superleague

I didn’t join a sports club until the age of sixteen, simply because I wasn’t exposed to one. Starting athletics at college age, I went on to represent Surrey, and I wonder, if I had started earlier, what more could I have done? If we get children into club sport from a young age, they become interested, engaged, and are more likely to continue sport for longer. Especially for girls. If schools can give more insight and advertise sport more, girls will at least know the options that are available to them.

What positive effects do you see as a coach and a director of sport, on how sport helps the mental and physical wellbeing of girls? 

The impact of exercise on mental wellbeing is massive. I want girls to come out and enjoy what they’re doing in sports. To watch them leave with a smile. Post-sport, we all feel so much better. Sport provides the space not to think (ease busy minds) and can help us all feel more proactive in the long run. Getting those endorphins flowing will help us all feel better. Improving our fitness helps us find challenging things a bit better, and all sport is done for a good reason.

According to the Women’s Sport Foundation, in the US, girls have 1.3 million fewer opportunities to play high school sports than boys have. In order for us to unlock more opportunities for girls and women, what changes can be made to help this situation become more balanced?

I think some of this lends itself to the lack of female role models. I am delighted to hear that we have a new female England football coach coming over from the Netherlands. We need more females in coaching roles. This speaks volumes to the importance of sport. If sport is still male dominated, girls will be less confident accepting opportunities.

We have to address this issue. There are enough women out there that would be fantastic coaches, and coaching alone, may open up so many more opportunities for girls in sport. The more younger girls see additional women doing sport, the more normal it will become. Despite being a girls’ school, we have a couple of male teachers in the department, which is great, because it shows the girls that a balance in sport is achievable. Educating younger children about what is normal will have a massive impact in encouraging girls to take up more sporting opportunities. In delivering what we deliver with an open mindset, we will ensure a positive experience for every girl we teach or coach.

There is now a lot more conversation around girls in sport. When asked how it feels to be the worlds best female tennis player, Serena Williams will answer “Well, how does it feel to be the world’s best tennis player? Take away the female. Whether I’m male or female doesn’t matter - I’m the world’s best tennis player”. In summary, we need to normalise sport for females.

There is a long way to go in helping to keep girls active, but what small steps can we take right now to help a girl who wants to try a sport for the first time?

My five top tips are:

-       Modify activities, break them down and make them easier- then bring it back up. Don’t let girls feel alone when they’re trying something new.

-       Provide girls with role models, especially role models their own age. Allow a young expert to encourage them along the way.

-       Use encouraging terminology in coaching.

-       Reiterate: It’s fine to make a mistake.

-       Make the environment as comfortable as possible.