Event Summary

Sport changes lives. It builds confidence, improves physical and mental health, and opens doors to education, employment, and community life. Yet for too many young people, those benefits remain out of reach.

Many young people face barriers to participation and miss out on life-changing sporting opportunities. Research from Sport England shows young people from low-income or disadvantaged backgrounds participate less in sport than those from wealthier families, and financial barriers include club fees, equipment, and travel costs affecting participation. Young people from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities are less likely to play sport or be physically active. Disabled young people and young people with SEND are significantly less active than their non-disabled peers. There is a clear gender participation gap in youth sport, particularly as girls get older. During adolescence, girls do around 1.4 fewer hours of sport per week than boys, with confidence and enjoyment of sport often declining during the teenage years.

What actions can change this?

Westminster Insight’s Youth Sport: Tackling the Participation Gap Conference will bring together everyone with a role in changing that picture including policymakers, schools, local authorities, community sport organisations, health partners, voluntary sector providers, national governing bodies, and youth practitioners.

We will explore the evolving policy framework for youth activity and school sport. Plans to expand opportunities for PE and school sport feature highly in the Government’s recent Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, with measures to increase access to PE and school sport. A new Enrichment Framework, to be published later this year, will set benchmarks for schools, with Ofsted inspections reflecting these from September 2026. New Enhanced PE and School Sport Partnerships will build stronger links between schools and local sport organisations, particularly in deprived areas, helping to widen access to facilities, coaching and extracurricular opportunities and create clearer pathways from school sport into community sport.

The National Youth Strategy, Youth Matters, commits to expanding access to high-quality sport and physical activity for young people. We will cover investment for local sports provision, youth spaces and activities, including funding through Sport England and the £350m Better Youth Spaces programme. Discover how the funding is being used to increase access to sport and physical activity and overcome local barriers to participation.

How can we level the playing field for girls in sport, particularly those facing multiple disadvantages? We will explore how PE curriculum can improved to better reflects girls’ experiences of sport. Take away guidance on school uniforms – how do you accommodate different needs around body image, culture and comfort. Covering issues such as access to facilities and provision, sexist abuse, and stereotyping, our expert speakers will tackle these gendered inequalities head on.

We will cover the role of broadcasters in driving access and visibility of sport, with a particular need for more visible female and disabled role models in sport. A dedicated session on lived experience will put youth voices at the heart of the conversation, with a conversation about what makes a positive experience of sport.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to network with peers from across education, sport and youth policy. Take away practical solutions and new ideas to ensure that every child can access the active life they deserve.

* Girls Active National Report 2025

Key Points

• Why sport matters, what it can achieve, and what the research says about the lifelong benefits
• Increasing access to sport in schools, and creating inclusive school cultures
• Enhanced PE and School Sport Partnerships and a new PE and Enrichment Framework
• Funding and investment available through the National Youth Strategy, Sport England, and the Better Youth Spaces programme
• The role of School Sport Partnership Network in targeting inactive young people
• Adapting your PE curriculum to be more inclusive and confidence building
• Practical solutions to address cost and lack of access to sport
• Amplifying youth voices: positive experiences of sport from young people
• Tackling stereotypes, sexual harassment and bullying
• Strengthening cross-sector collaboration across schools, MATs, local authorities, grassroots sport, and the voluntary sector

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Group discounts

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