Recommendation 2

Key anxieties for girls include concerns around periods, yet education on the menstrual cycle, despite being mandatory, is only being delivered in half of schools. It is shocking that around 50% of schools are disregarding a vital, and mandatory, element of the curriculum. Where it is being delivered, in most cases, it is part of a biology lesson and years after most girls will have started their period. As we have found in our other work, this is typical of current teaching on reproductive health, which is inadequate, irrelevant to girls’ needs, and delivered too late in girls’ development. These failings are having obvious consequences for girls’ confidence and, in terms of participation in and enjoyment of PE and sport, leading to withdrawal from necessary, healthy activity.