Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2019/20

Ipsos carried out this survey of pupils in schools on behalf of Sport England during the academic year 2019/20.

The survey is carried out online through schools in England during the autumn, spring and summer terms.  Questionnaires are completed by pupils in year 1-2 and their parents, pupils in year 3-11, and one teacher in each school.  Schools are recruited with the assistance of Active Partnerships, School Games Organisers and others involved in providing support for sport in schools.  This is the third year of the survey. During the 2019/20 academic year over 100,000 pupil and parent responses were received from just under 1,400 schools.  The survey continued during all three terms of the 2019/20 academic year despite the closure of school sites to many pupils during the summer term. A smaller sample than originally planned was issued in the summer term 2020 to reduce burden on schools and many pupils completed the survey from home.  In year 1 and year 2 over 130,000 pupil and parent responses were received from over 2,000 schools.

This year, in addition to the main annual report which compares results across all three years of the survey, a special coronavirus report has been published which compares results for the summer term 2020 (during the pandemic) with the summer term 2019 (in the previous academic year).

The main report includes information on how much sport and physical activity young people are doing overall and by different demographic groups and which activities are most prevalent in different year groups.  The report also covers the prevalence of volunteering to support sports and physical activity, which types of volunteering are most common and how the demographic profile of volunteers differs from the population as a whole.  It also explores associations between wellbeing, individual and community development, attitudes and participation in sport, physical activity and volunteering.  The sample sizes for the survey allow analysis of activity by active partnership and region in order to look at geographical inequalities.

The coronavirus report explores the impact of the pandemic on participation in activity, attitudes, wellbeing and community and individual development during the ‘easing restrictions’ phase of lockdown, from mid-May to the end of July (summer term 2020).

• The year 3 reports – with the data tables and technical note - have now been published on the Sport England website.
• Read Dr. Margaret Blake's blog about research in schools in 2020.
• The results of the year 1 and 2 of the survey (2017/18 and 2018/19) are available here: Active Lives Children and Young People Survey.
• Read Dr. Margaret Blake's blog from Year 1: How active are children and young people (and will they tell us)?

Technical Note

A sample of schools was drawn from the Department for Education list of schools (Edubase (Get information about Schools) 2018/19) and up to three classes in each school selected. The sample includes state primary, state secondary and independent schools and each school was allocated to a term.  The published pupil level data are weighted to make the weighted achieved sample match the population as closely as possible. Information on the sampling, weighting and how confidence intervals and population estimates were calculated are included in a detailed technical note.

The questionnaire collects detailed information on participation in a wide range of sport and physical activity over the previous week, both at school and outside school.  Information is gathered on the type of activity, time spent doing activities, the intensity, and whether it is indoors or outdoors.  This information was used to create the derived activity variables presented in the report.  In addition, questions are asked about the key outcomes in Sport England’s strategy including wellbeing, and individual and community development as well as related topics such as volunteering and sports spectating. A question on loneliness was included for the first time in 2019/20.  Socio-demographic information is provided at a pupil and school level and allows for analysis of inequalities in sports participation.  Detailed information on swimming proficiency and confidence are also included in the survey.  The questions asked vary by pupil year group.  Details of the questions, derived variables and definitions are provided in the technical note.

How lockdown affected collection of the data:

The Active Lives Children and Young People survey is a school-based survey (i.e. historically always completed at school as part of lessons). From 20th March 2020, schools, colleges and nurseries were closed in the UK due to the coronavirus pandemic; and remained closed until 1st June 2020, when there was a phased reopening for reception, years 1 and 6. The Active Lives survey fieldwork in Spring term finished two weeks early before the end of term, in line with the school closures.

Due to the closure of schools, the Active Lives Children and Young People survey had to be adapted for at home completion. The adaptions involved minor questionnaire changes (e.g. to ensure the wording was appropriate for both the new lockdown situation and to account for the new survey completion method at home) and communication changes. Active Partnerships (who help to deliver the survey) had to be alerted to the new survey format, and their help was requested to check that schools still wished to take part.

The circumstances and adaptations resulted in a delay to survey fieldwork re-starting. This means that our data does not cover the full lockdown period, and instead re-starts from Mid-May 2020 (when the survey was re-launched). We have produced an additional Coronavirus report, which outlines changes during the ‘easing restrictions’ phase of lockdown, from mid-May to the end of July.