A disconnect persists between the abundance of reports advocating for increased physical activity and the stagnant levels of actual engagement. Sports councils, health bodies, charities, and thinktanks continuously accumulate evidence that sport and physical activity contribute to healthier, happier lives, enhance academic performance and workplace productivity, strengthen community bonds, and aid in crime prevention and reducing reoffending. Yet, translating this evidence into reality remains elusive.
Calls for Better Coordination
Recent reports, including the House of Commons inquiry titled "Game On: Community and School Sport," have called for improved coordination. However, sport and physical activity remain poorly integrated across schools, sports clubs, community organisations, parks, and playgrounds. In an era of superintelligence and lunar missions, it seems inexcusable that such fragmentation persists.
Structural Change and Innovation
Structural change and innovation are urgently needed. Mark Davies, an entrepreneur and former chair of British Rowing and Archery GB, has long advocated for linking local schools with sports clubs, an idea first proposed when Tracey Crouch served as sports minister from 2015 to 2018. Frustrated by inaction, Davies established The Big Map, a platform enabling schools and clubs to connect directly and collaborate with funders to explore more entrepreneurial approaches.
Nationally, integrating sport and physical activity into health, education, and community-building agendas has proven challenging. Greater Manchester’s Moving Partnership offers a pioneering practical model, connecting health, transport, urban design services, and community groups rather than relying solely on individual willpower. Operating under a 10-year strategy with robust political backing, the partnership continuously experiments, learns, and adapts to achieve what has never been done before.
Political Will and Vision
Major change requires political will and a vision for sport that transcends hosting the next Olympics or World Cup. This vision is lacking, partly due to long-term consequences of our health, education, and political systems. Education has prioritised individual academic subjects over a holistic understanding of how we learn, develop, and thrive throughout our lives.
Physical education (PE) has become nearly optional. The Youth Sport Trust advocates for improved PE through its focus on the urgent needs of the "Class of 2035." The recent Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) report, "Inactive Nation," highlights a growing health crisis among primary school children and emphasises the need to embed physical activity at the core of school life. The CSJ urges national scaling of Bradford’s Creating Active Schools framework, which demonstrates what is possible when schools organise life around movement.
Health System Focus
Over the long term, the health system has oriented our lives around medical treatment rather than holistic, preventative approaches that incorporate movement and activity. Social prescribing attempts to address this issue but remains piecemeal. A national shift towards prevention, rather than cure, demands a strong proactive approach that makes sport and physical activity far more accessible.
Traumatic Experiences
One recent survey highlighted an uncomfortable truth: too many people had awful experiences of sport and PE lessons growing up. Age UK launched the "Act Now, Age Better" campaign to support older people in becoming more active, with a survey revealing that over 4 million mid-lifers remain traumatised by memories of PE lessons. A similar number were put off physical activity for life by school PE.
This serves as a devastating reminder that the impact of schooling extends far beyond exam results. If ever there was a powerful argument for radically reshaping school PE, Age UK has made it. This resonates personally; as a tall, uncoordinated teenager who could not run fast, I was labelled unsporty and spent most PE lessons trying to hide. My father experienced similar in the 1950s.
Serendipitous Change
It was only through serendipity that my fate changed at university when I unexpectedly tried rowing, experiencing sport differently. It provided camaraderie, joy, a way to discover and learn with others, and compete for fun. Decades later, I still feel supported by belonging to this community. Although it led to elite level, that is secondary.
Age UK’s campaign reminds everyone in sport that experience matters most. Too often, focus has been on increasing participation, assuming people will feel better simply by taking part. The survey underscores that experiences keep people involved—or put them off for life. Many have felt unwelcome, excluded, and too quickly labelled unsporty because sport was not shaped around people; people had to shape themselves around sport.
Sport's Potential
We have lost sight of sport’s potential to be a core ingredient in living a good life, adaptable to individual needs—whether supporting a child to attend school regularly, thrive through teens or older years, or choose a path away from crime. Fortunately, a distinct body of evidence supports this.
Although it hardly features in most sports coverage or government policy, the unheralded sport for development sector understands how to use sport and physical activity to tackle wide-ranging social issues. This sector holds the key to thinking differently, measuring real-life effects, and transforming lives. Whether it is the Alliance for Sport in Criminal Justice or Street Games, these experts know how to adapt sport to meet complex social challenges, rather than merely winning local leagues.
Shaping positive, meaningful experiences over the long term that address serious social issues must form the central vision for the future of sport and physical activity.
