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Only 59% of girls in secondary schools enjoy PE lessons, compared with 84% of the boys

By Marthe de Ferrer and Julia Bryson

BBC News

The gap between the proportion of boys and girls in England who enjoy PE lessons is widening, a survey suggests.

Some 59% of girls in secondary schools who responded to a Youth Sport Trust survey said they liked PE or liked it a lot, compared with 84% of the boys.

The girls' proportion in the same survey in 2016 was 74%, whereas for boys it has remained stable.

The government said it wanted to ensure all children had opportunities to create a lifelong passion for sport.

A Department for Education official said its plans for improving girls' access to sport included encouraging schools to offer a minimum of two hours of physical education a week.

More than £600m of fundingis to be delivered over two academic years, which was announced after England women's national football team wrote an open letter to the government, calling for more school-sport opportunities for girls.

'Alarm bells'

Periods and low confidence were the two most common reasons girls in the survey gave for not wanting to play sport.