The government has been urged to radically overhaul how physical education is delivered to girls in British schools after a major new report found alarming inactivity and a strong desire for less traditional sports.

In one of the largest ever surveys into girls and school sport, The Youth Sport Trust surveyed almost 26,000 primary and secondary pupils over a two year period and found an extraordinary range of benefits associated with being active.

They included significantly increased happiness, confidence, resilience, ambition, empathy and a willingness to pursue new ideas. The findings on activity levels, however, were deeply concerning, with just seven per cent of secondary age girls and 11 per cent of secondary age boys saying that they did more than 60 minutes of activity every day. The government’s chief medical officer’s advice is for at least 60 minutes.

The report recommends changes to how PE is delivered, including empowering girls by involving them in the choices of physical activity, after it found strong preferences for activities that did not include the traditional team sports. For girls, the most popular three activities were trampolining, dance and swimming. For boys, they were football, dodgeball and parkour, which is a military-style obstacle course activity.