How to Encourage Girls to Play Sport – read how it’s done

We are Girls in Sport have been reading about some inspirational schoolgirls who took matters into their own hands to encourage more girls to take up sport in their school.

As featured in The Daily Telegraph last year, Ava Lang, Malaika Islam and Amira Mohamed were all year 10 pupils at School 21 in Stratford, London, UK when they came together to start an extraordinary transformation in the participation of young girls in sport at their school. Ava, Malaika and Amira had always liked sport but took part only in a limited capacity until the chance came almost two years ago to create ‘Muscles and Mascara’, an after-school sports club for girls. That has since expanded in activities and popularity to the point where they launched their own community-wide ‘Newham Unity’ netball club for girls aged between 13 and 16.

“When I started in year seven, we never really had any girls participating in sport,” says Amira. “It upset me that not enough other girls knew what sport can do. Now we have so many girls coming together to play sport. It is so empowering, and it really inspires us to do more.”

 
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School 21 is a mixed comprehensive that takes children aged four all the way to 18. It was founded in 2012 close to the Olympic Park and the majority of children arrive in reception with skills described by Ofsted as "well below" average. They then make "rapid progress." It prides itself on doing things differently and decided, in 2017, to become one of more than 600 schools to sign up to the Youth Sport Trust’s Girls Active programme. The girls themselves came up with the initiative ‘Muscles and Mascara’, loyalty cards were introduced and, upon reaching 10 stamps, the girls each receive a purple ‘Muscles and Mascara’ T-shirt which they wear to PE.

One 10-year-old girl said about her new love and ability for doing cartwheels: “I feel more energetic and it makes me more comfortable with other children leading it - I know they will understand if I can’t do it.”

Last year, the girls were invited to speak about Girls Active at an event and the benefits of sports have impacted other aspects of their life. Words like grit, resilience and teamwork come up again and again in conversation with Ava, Malaika and Amira, as well as a definite competitive pride both in their netball improvement and finishing second in a recent district badminton tournament.

Well done girls! We think this is an inspiring and empowering way to get more girls to participate and enjoy sport. We are sharing your story to show support for your campaign. This proves how three girls can make such a positive impact for girls in sport. One girl at a time.

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We are Girls in Sport is asking how much sport is offered to girls currently in your school and what is that experience like? Do you think more could be done to bring greater equality of opportunity in school sports? Share your views by emailing us at wearegirlsinsport@gmail.com the chance to be included in a future blog feature.