Girls Active Participation Survey
We are pleased to be able to provide this opportunity for schools in England to participate in the survey between 12 May and 20 June 2025. Each school will receive a School Insight Report based on the collated responses of students in your school. An example of the report schools will receive is provided in the downloads below.
If you are interested in registering your school to take part in the survey, please read the below information and then follow the link to register.
About the survey
- The survey is available for female students in key stages 2, 3, 4 and 5 (and male students if you wish to receive a separate report).
- There are short and long survey options.
- The short survey is age-appropriate for primary students and is the survey that all primary students will complete.
- Secondary schools can choose for students to complete the short OR long survey.
- If you are an all-through school, it is possible for primary students to complete short and secondary students to complete the long survey.
- Secondary and all-through schools will be asked to confirm your preferences on the above in the registration process.
- As a minimum, to receive a bespoke report for your school, there must be at least 25 student responses per gender.
After registration, you will receive a survey link which will reflect the responses you give in this registration process. This link can be used for girls as well as boys (if you wish to receive a separate report for boys in your school). Responses to the survey using this link will also be attributed to your school only, therefore, please do not share the survey link with any other school.
Please see the long and short survey questions available in the downloads on the right hand side to help you decide which option is appropriate for your students if you are a secondary or all-through school.
Please note:
In the long version of the survey secondary aged girls will also be able to choose whether they complete an additional 4 short questions about taking part in PE or school sport when they are on their period, as well as how comfortable they are talking to their teacher about periods. They do not have to answer these 4 questions if they don’t want to.
The survey also asks students for some personal data such as their gender, year group, ethnicity, disability and free school meal status. In addition, for secondary age students we would like to ask a question in the survey about their faith/religion. This question is detailed in the long survey and help us to understand the responses of young people from different characteristic groups.
Together, this personal data helps us to understand the diversity of the people that respond to the questions in the survey. It will help us improve our work in the future and enable us to understand the activity levels, views and perspectives of young people from different characteristic groups. We will not ask for their name.
What happens to information collected?
All student responses are confidential. All responses will be compiled to produce a ‘School Insight Report’ for your school. Your school responses will also contribute to a county and national picture but no individuals or schools will be identified.
Data protection, consent, research purpose and ethics
Please read the research information sheet for full information about the research process for the long and/or short survey for the Girls Active Survey. This includes information on data protection, research purposes, ethics and informing parents/guardians about the research.
NEXT STEPS
- Register - By Tuesday 06 May 2025, please complete this short registration providing your school survey preferences to enable the Youth Sport Trust to set up the survey for your school.
REGISTER HERE - Inform Parents/Guardians - Once you’ve registered, ensure to add the deadline date to the parts of Parent/Guardian Information Letter and (highlighted in yellow) before sending out.
The deadline date that you add should be the day that you plan to complete the survey (between 12 May and 20 June 2025) and at least two weeks away. Please allow parents/guardians at least two weeks ahead of the deadline to consider their option to ‘opt out’ their young person from the research.
- Receive Survey - You will receive information and students should then complete the survey between 12 May and 20 June 2025, using the online link that will be provided to you after registration. Please ensure that any young people whose parents/guardians have opted them out of the research do not complete the survey.
Please show the Girls Active Pre-Survey Video to the young people completing the survey ahead of them starting the survey.
No one has to take part in the research if they do not feel comfortable doing so. In situations where either a parent or young person has decided not to participate, please provide the young person with another activity to do during the research time. We ask for a teacher to be present during the time the young people are completing the survey in case young people have any questions. If you have any further questions, please get in touch with us: [email protected].
We encourage secondary schools to aim for ~150 students to complete the survey to ensure the sample is representative of the school population. However, we acknowledge schools smaller or larger than a typical school should consider what is appropriate for their school size. As a minimum, to receive a bespoke report for your school, there must be at least 25 student responses per gender.
- Receive Insight Report - The Youth Sport Trust will email each school their school insight report(s), further information to support you using the insight and free resources to support you from Monday 30 June 2025.
If you have any further questions please get in touch with us: [email protected].