In 2020/21, the UK Government, with the backing of the Duchess of Cambridge, conducted a UK-wide study of children’s experiences. The Big Ask asked children and young people about a variety of elements of their day-today lives, their self-perception and their hopes of the future.
At GFS, we have a good understanding of the challenges facing our girls, and the ways that access to our groups improves their lives. But this research provides a useful insight into how GFS girls compare to the nation’s young people on the whole. Below, we have outlined some key factors relating to children’s wellbeing, and how the affect GFS groups have on them based on our own research with girls who attend groups.
Girls who attend GFS are more likely to be unhappy at school
When we asked our girls, 21.2% said that they were unhappy at school. This was compared to 15.9% of girls and 13.2% of boys, nationally.
This is consistent with what many parents tells us is the reason they sing their daughter up to GFS. They lack confidence in a school setting and many struggle with friendships. Clearly, GFS is answering a particular need for these families.
Similarly, they are a little more likely to be unhappy with their online experiences than girls of the same age
In addition to this, all girls report being significantly more unhappy with their online experiences than boys.
This correlates with what we know about girls’ experiences online, in particular with regards to social media. The increased unhappiness in GFS is likely linked to online bullying, an issue we know a number of girls struggle with. Finding out more about this will be part of our Girls’ Voices work over the coming months.
The good news is GFS girls are happier with their mental health than most girls
60% of GFS girls reported being happy with their mental health, in comparison to an average score of 49.3% of girls nationally.
This particularly interesting when broken down by age. Between the ages of 9-11, GFS girls are only marginally less happy than others – the national average of girls who are unhappy with their mental is 10.3% compared to 7.7% of GFS girls.
However, by the ages of 12-15, GFS girls 15.8% of GFS girls say they are unhappy with their mental health, compared to 29% nationally. This seems to suggest that access to GFS activities in younger years, is reducing the decline in older girls’ mental wellbeing by half.
In fact, our research shows that GFS girls are happier overall
Despite being unhappy at school and growing up with in communities with fewer opportunities, girls who attend GFS are consistently happier with their lives overall.
75.3% of GFS girls reported being happy with their lives overall, compared to 66.4% girls. In fact, they were closer to the average level for boys, of 77.8%. The suggests that, not only are GFS groups helping to counteract the struggles in disadvantaged communities, but also addressing the imbalance between genders.
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