Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2021-22

Ipsos carried out this survey of pupils in schools on behalf of Sport England during the academic year 2021-22. This is the fifth year of an ongoing annual survey.

The survey is carried out online through schools in England during the autumn, spring and summer terms.  Questionnaires are completed by pupils in school year 1-2 and their parents, pupils in school 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.  

During the 2021-22 academic year over 120,000 pupil and parent responses were received from over 1,500 schools.  

The 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 attitudes of children and young people to sport and activity and the relationship with activity levels and wellbeing are explored. The report also covers the prevalence of volunteering to support sports and physical activity, and how the demographic profile of volunteers differs from the population as a whole. It also explores associations between wellbeing, individual and community development and participation in sport, physical activity and volunteering. The report also includes findings about swimming ability and access to swimming lessons. The sample sizes for the survey allow analysis of activity by active partnership, local authority and region in order to look at geographical inequalities. This year results are also shown by the income deprivation of the area where their school is located. In year 5 the report compares data with the previous survey year (2020-21) as well as the last pre-pandemic academic year (2018-19).

• The year 5 report – with the data tables and technical note - has now been published on the Sport England website.
• The results from academic years 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21  of the survey (years 1 to 4) are available here: Active Lives Children and Young People Survey.

Technical Note

• A sample of schools was drawn from the Department for Education list of schools (Edubase (Get information about Schools) 2020-21) 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 so there are now three years of data for this measure.  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 the COVID-19 pandemic affected collection of the data - despite the disruption to education on school sites, the survey continued throughout the pandemic with adaptations which enabled pupils to complete from home as needed. The data provide a valuable source of information on children’s activities and wellbeing before, during and following the pandemic.

Data
Active Lives Children and Young People Survey data from survey years 1 to 4 (2017-18,  2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21) are now available from the UK Data Service.