Studio You is a brand-new video-on-demand programme launching today as part of our National Lottery-funded mission to get more teenage girls active through fun PE lessons.
The free Netflix-style platform, featuring more than 100 videos, will allow PE teachers to teach activities found to be popular with teenage girls - such as yoga, boxing, Pilates and dance – in place of more traditional classes as a way to get them interested in exercise. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Supported by the Association for Physical Education, Studio You aims is to increase the number of teenage girls meeting the Chief Medical Officer's recommended level of physical activity for their age – with 57% currently not meeting this target.
According to research, more than half of girls aged 13-16 feel self-conscious or lack confidence when it comes to exercise, with almost a third saying they haven’t found anything they enjoy. Studio You aims to break down these barriers and help PE teachers make a positive change.
“Many girls grow up to have a negative relationship with exercise,” said Kate Dale, our campaigns lead.
“Studio You is the resource we need to help them have a positive relationship with it instead. And for some girls, PE at school is their only chance to get active – so it’s important to make it fun and get the experience right for them.
“We know PE teachers want all their students to enjoy PE, but the pressures of school life and being a teenager make this challenging.
“Studio You is here to help teachers to get girls enjoying exercise, to close the gender activity gap and to help girls build healthy habits for life.”
We know that teenage years are the peak time during which girls drop out of school sport and develop negative attitudes towards physical activity, with almost two thirds of girls quitting sport altogether by the age of 17.
The pandemic has made this worse, with disruptions and the closure of schools meaning 62% of teenage girls were doing less activity during the pandemic than before.
So, with only 34% of girls in Years 9-11 strongly agreeing that they enjoy taking part in PE, compared to 56% of boys the same age, the non-traditional and non-competitive aspects of Studio You are designed to combat this.
“The class was really fun, and it made me feel like I was doing well and keeping fit; it was really good,” said one Year 9 pupil who participated in a Studio You pilot class at her school.
