Children’s activity levels remain stable but significant and sustained action required

Children and young people’s activity levels have been maintained and remained stable across the 2023-24 academic year.

Our latest Active Lives Children and Young People Survey Report, which we’ve published today, shows that 47.8% of children are meeting the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines of taking part in an average of 60 minutes or more of sport and physical activity every day.

Active Lives explained

The video begins with a man looking towards the camera, with a white background. The caption ‘Nick Pontefract, Chief Strategy Officer’ appears at the bottom of the screen, while beside him the words ‘Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2023-24 Explained’ appear.

He says: “This year's Active Lives Children and Young People Survey shows us that 47.8% of children and young people are doing an average of 60 minutes of activity or more every day. That’s the level recommended by the Chief Medical Officer.”

While he’s saying these words, a pie chart appears next to him with the title ‘Levels of activity’ and the subtitle ‘Average of 60+ minutes a day’. The segments in the chart are ‘Active 47.8%; Fairly active 22.7%; Less active 29.6%’.

Nick continues: “While this is an improvement on the position seen when our survey first began, results have stabilised in recent years. We want to see these numbers grow.”

While he’s saying these words, a line chart appears next to him with the title ‘Levels of activity’ and the subtitle ‘Results have stabilised’. Two lines are plotted on the chart: ‘Active’ and ‘Less active’. ‘Active’ is labelled: 43% in 2017-18; 47% in 2021-22; 47% in 2022-23; 48% in 2023-24. ‘Less active’ is labelled: 33% in 2017-18; 30% in 2021-22; 30% in 2022-23; 30% in 2023-24.

Nick continues: “We can also see some significant demographic differences. Girls are less likely to be active than boys, while those from more affluent families are more likely to be physically active.”

While he’s saying these words, two vertical bar charts appear beside him. Firstly, there’s one titled ‘Levels of activity’ with two bars labelled: ‘Female, 45%; Male, 51%’. The second one is also titled ‘Levels of activity’ with three bars relating to family affluence, labelled: ‘High, 57%; Medium, 47%; Low, 45%’.

Nick continues: “Children and young people from a White or Mixed background are more likely to be active than Black or Asian children.”

While he’s saying these words, a vertical bar chart appears beside him, titled ‘Levels of activity’. The four bars in the chart are labelled: ‘White, 50%; Mixed, 49%; Asian, 43%; Black, 42%’.

Nick continues: “But even more significantly, those with two or more characteristics of inequality – for example, Asian girls, or someone less affluent from a Black background – are significantly less likely to be active.”

While he’s saying these words, a vertical bar chart appears beside him, titled ‘Levels of activity’ and with an x-axis label of ‘Characteristics of inequality’. The three bars are labelled: ‘0, 52%; 1, 47%; 2+, 40%’.

Nick continues: “They are also less likely to volunteer, and have the lowest levels of positive attitudes and wider outcomes compared to their peers with no characteristics of inequality at all.”

While he’s saying these words, two vertical bar charts appear beside him. The first is titled ‘Volunteering’ and has an x-axis label of ‘Characteristics of inequality’. The three bars are labelled: ‘0, 50%; 1, 49%; 2+, 37%’. The second is titled ‘Positive attitudes’ and has an x-axis label of ‘Characteristics of inequality’. The three bars are labelled: ‘0, 44%; 1, 30%; 2+, 23%’.

Nick continues: “This is why our 10-year strategy, Uniting the Movement, is focussed on addressing those inequalities.”

While he’s saying these words, the words ‘Uniting the Movement’ appear on the screen beside him.

Nick continues: “The report offers vital insights into how children and young people feel, with happiness, resilience and trust scores all lower than when the survey began.”

While he’s saying these words, graphics appear on the screen relating to a heading of ‘Feelings’. ‘Happiness’, denoted by a smiling face, shows with a donut chart showing 6.9. ‘Keep trying’, denoted by a figure standing with hands on hips, shows next to a donut chart showing 34.0%. ‘Trust’, denoted by a thumbs up symbol, shows next to a donut chart showing 23.0%.

Nick continues: “Given the positive association between activity levels and these outcomes, it further demonstrates the need to better support more young people to get more active. It also points to how that might be achieved, with those having a greater number of positive attitudes towards sport and physical activity being more likely to be more active than those with no positive attitudes at all.”

While he’s saying these words, the previous graphics disappear from the screen and two bars appear on screen, each split into red, blue and green sections. Red denotes ‘less active’, blue ‘fairly active’ and green ‘active’. The bar for 0 positive attitudes shows 34% active, 23% fairly active and 44% active. The bar for 3+ positive attitudes shows 62% active, 17% fairly active and 21% active.

Nick continues: “As ever, our full report can provide more headline information and you can also access the detailed data tables or visit the Active Lives online tool, on our website.”

As he’s saying these words, the bars slide off the screen to the right and the front cover of the Active Lives Children and Young People Survey – academic year 2023-24 report appears next to Nick.

Nick and all existing graphics then disappear from the screen and are replaced with a royal blue background, upon which appears the Sport England logo, in white, and a white text box with sportengland.org/activelives, in it.

Today’s report demonstrates the long-term impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on children and young people’s relationship with sport and physical activity.

Children who were in nursery to school Year 4 (ages 4-9) when the pandemic struck in 2020 have been particularly disadvantaged.

This age group, in school Years 3-8 (ages 7-13) during this report’s timeframe, remain less likely to have positive attitudes towards activity and have a lower sense of opportunity.

Children in school Years 3-6 have seen the largest drops in those reporting three or more positive attitudes, down 4.9% compared to children of the same age during the 2017-18 academic year. Children in Years 7-8 have also seen a long-term drop (down 3.1%), whereas older children have seen a small increase over the same period.

Happiness scores are also down across those in Years 3-8, while the largest drops since the 2017-18 academic year in individual development (those who ‘keep trying’ when they find something hard) are seen for those in school Years 5-6 and 7-8 (down 6.9% and 7.0% respectively, compared to when older children were that age six years ago).

Furthermore, our report has found that children in school Year 7 are less likely to be able to swim 25 metres unaided (70% can) than older children could at this age (77% of children in school Year 11 in 2023-24 could when they were in school Year 7 in 2017-18).

If this group don't catch up, there could be a generation of children who don't learn this important life skill and, subsequently, may be less likely to introduce their own children to swimming in adult life.

Graphic showing the impact of Covid-19 on the generation of young children. 38% of children in school Years 3-6 report 3+ positive attitudes to physical activity. 33% for Years 7-8 and 31% for Years 9-11. These are down from 43%, 36% and 29%, respectively, pre-pandemic.

Inequalities remain

Today’s findings reinforce that participation in sport and physical activity varies greatly among different demographic groups.

Significant inequalities remain in activity levels, with Black (42%) and Asian (43%) children and young people, and those from the least affluent families (45%), still less likely to play sport or be physically active than the average across all ethnicities and affluence groups. Girls (45%) are also less likely to be active than boys (51%).

Even more significantly, those with two or more characteristics of inequality, for example Asian girls, or someone less affluent from a Black background, are significantly less likely to be active than their peers with no characteristics of inequality at all.

Types of activities

Our report also outlines the types of activity being undertaken by children and young people, and how this varies by age group.

For example, active travel (83% having taken part at least once in the last week) and active play and informal activity (81%) are most common for children in school Years 1-2 (ages 5-7), while team sports become more common as children get older (with 57% of children in Years 7-11, aged 11-16, taking part in a team sport at least once in the last week, compared to 40% in Years 1-2).

Download the report

Click on the link below to read our report – if embedded links in the PDF do not function correctly in Google Chrome, please use another browser, or open the report in a dedicated PDF viewer:

Active Lives Children and Young People Survey - academic year 2023-24 report Download the file - 8.09 MB

Chief executive's reaction

This video consists solely of Sport England's chief executive, Tim Hollingsworth, speaking directly to camera.

He says: “The first lockdown was nearly five years ago and feels distant to many. But for the pandemic generation, Covid-19 has had a fundamental impact.

"The data shows that, for the children whose impressionable early years were defined by lockdowns and lack of activities, attitudes towards sport and physical activity are distinctly negative.

“An active early life improves a child’s physical, mental and social health, so it’s unacceptable that fewer than half of children and young people are meeting the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines.

"Significant inequalities remain, with Black and Asian children and young people, girls and the least affluent children less likely to be active.

“All this points to the absolute need to address these problems head on.

"The challenge is huge – with issues like rising obesity levels and cost of living damaging children’s health prospects too – but so is the opportunity.

"An active generation is critical to the Government’s missions because active children turn into active adults, helping our NHS and improving the long-term health and wealth of our country.

“Sport England will continue to play our part to solve these challenges, but we cannot do it alone. We look forward to working with the Government and everyone who cares about future generations to drive the changes we need.”

The screen fades to blue and the Sport England logo, in white, appears in the middle of the screen.

What else is in the report?

Today’s latest Active Lives Survey Report offers enormous insight into the activity habits of children and young people in England.

Download the full report to explore levels of activity for different demographic groups and discover how a child’s gender, ethnicity, family affluence, whether they have disabilities or long-term health conditions impacts how likely they are to be physically active – you can also explore how this changes as they get older.

Today’s report also has a deep dive into volunteering, with rates remaining unchanged compared to 12 months ago, suggesting they might be settling at a lower level than pre-pandemic.

There remains 6.9%, or 234,000 fewer children and young people volunteering compared to six years ago (academic year 2017-18).

There's also a section on wellbeing, individual and community development, looking at the wider outcomes for children and young people, both overall and linked to their levels of engagement in sport and physical activity.

Measures covered are mental wellbeing, individual development and social and community development.

It demonstrates how active children are more likely to be happier, have higher self-esteem and be more trusting than inactive children.

Graphic showing activity levels of children and young people. 29.6% (2.1m) are less active (doing less than an average of 30 minutes a day. 22.7% (1.6m) are fairly active (an average of 30-59 minutes a day). 47.8% (3.3m) are active (an average of 60+ minutes a day).

There's been a significant drop in happiness for both boys (down to 7.2 out of 10 from 7.4 in 2017/18) and girls (down to 6.7 out of 10 from 7.1) from where they were before the pandemic.

The report also looks at children’s attitudes towards sport and physical activity.

This section shows how many children report finding sport easy, are confident at being active, understand why it's good for them and how they can get involved as well as enjoying taking part.

Just over a third of children and young people report three or more positive attitudes, while under half of secondary-age young people feel they have the opportunity to be active.

Finally, the report’s publicly available data tables underline the importance of place, as activity levels vary significantly across the country.

How we're making a difference

Children and young people are a key focus of our long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement, and are central to our work through our partnerships, investment in places, our Movement Fund and campaigns.

We believe physical activity is central to happy and healthy lives, and positive experiences at an early age help build the foundations for an active life.

Since March 2022, we’ve invested more than £600 million in more than 130 long-term partnerships, showing our recognition of the important role our partners play in creating positive experiences for young people, whether as a participant, leader, coach or volunteer.

These partners include national governing bodies of sport, Youth Sport Trust, UK Youth Active Partnerships, Street Games and the School Games Organiser (SGO) network.

This network is made up of a workforce of 450 individuals and supports 2.2 million participation opportunities for children, including 28,000 competitive school sport events.

We’re also investing £250m of National Lottery and Exchequer funding into our place-based work.

This investment, which builds on the learnings from our local delivery pilots, is targeted.

Furthermore, sustained community engagement and listening to the voice of local children and young people, is leading to interventions that have greater local ownership and sustainability.

These projects have also focussed in on accessibility, enjoyment and the needs of the local young people. Examples of this work include:

In Pennine Lancashire, direct engagement and collaboration with the Muslim community has seen more than 5,000 young people increase their daily activity levels through the Active Madrassah programme. 
In Bedford, a partnership with the local housing association and Be Active Beds has enabled girls aged between five and 12 years to get active by taking part in free swimming lessons. The girls, who hadn’t had access to swimming lessons previously – for various reasons, including financial and cultural barriers – were able to access the lessons for free and were given the opportunity to gain potentially life-saving skills. 
Through our Place work in Cranbrook, they’ve opened a brand-new pump track in their country park. Popular with residents of all ages, the track is helping young children to engage in physical activity, while also giving them a sense of community and getting active being fun.

Last year, we also worked with our partners to develop a Physical Literacy Consensus Statement for England.

It helps us understand that our relationship with sport and activity changes over our lifetime and how the experiences we have and our opportunities to be active impact how likely we are to take part.

On the back of this work, we have launched the Positive Experiences Programme, which connects, convenes and supports partners to consider how to apply physical literacy in practice

This work ties in with Play Their Way, a coaching campaign we’ve invested £4m in that encourages coaches to prioritise enjoyment and listen to what children want, that launched in 2023.

A collaboration between 16 partner organisations, the campaign aims to work with England’s 2.6m coaches to build a grassroots movement aimed at increasing and improving child-first coaching in communities across the nation.

It’s hoped that by putting the child first, it will help them enjoy being active their own way and allow great coaching to inspire children into staying active for life.

So far, 89% of coaches who have encountered the campaign say they’ve reflected on their own coaching practices after reading campaign material.

We’ve also invested £1.5m into Studio You, a ‘Netflix’-style digital platform designed to help PE teachers engage the least active girls through non-traditional online activity sessions, such as dance, combat and yoga.

Launched in 2021, the platform is free to all secondary schools and almost half of them in England (60%) have signed up so far, and it’s estimated Studio You has already reached more than 164,000 teenage girls.

Further reaction

Sports Minister, Stephanie Peacock MP

"Sport is essential in allowing children and young people to develop healthy and positive attitudes for life.

"Today’s data shows that there is more work to do. This government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity to ensure that every young person can lead a healthy and active life.”

Active Travel Commissioner and Sport England Chair, Chris Boardman

“Children and young people love nothing more than walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling – when I visit schools I consistently see scores of children talking about the freedom it gives them, how it helps them to focus at school work, how it re-energises them for their day.

“It’s fantastic to see that – in the last six years – 834,000 more young people – and in a lot of cases their grown ups too - getting to school, the shops and leisure activities under their own steam.

"It’s no coincidence that this is happening in tandem with the delivery of new high-quality routes, crossings and junctions.

"Active Travel England is working with councils nationwide to create healthier, happier and greener everyday journeys for all."

What's next?

Our next Active Lives Adult Survey report will be published on Thursday 24 April 2025.

It’ll cover the period from November 2023 to November 2024 and will give a detailed breakdown of overall activity levels, types of activities undertaken and demographic variations in England during this period.

Additional information

Our Active Lives Children and Young People Survey, conducted by Ipsos, gives the most comprehensive overview of the sport and physical activity habits of children in England.  

It looks at the number of children taking part in a wide range of sport and physical activities (ranging from dance and scootering to active play and team sports) at moderate intensity. 

The report’s based on responses from, and on behalf of, more than 100,000 children aged 5-16 in England during the academic year 2023/2024, making it one of the largest studies of its kind in the world.