Strategies to Increase Participation

For Edexcel GCSE PE, you must understand not only why participation varies but also what can be done about it. This lesson covers the strategies used by governments, national governing bodies (NGBs), charities and other organisations to increase participation in sport and physical activity across all social groups.

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Why Do We Need Strategies?

Despite the proven benefits of physical activity, participation levels in the UK remain uneven. Certain groups — women, older adults, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds — consistently participate at lower rates. Strategies aim to:

• Remove barriers to participation
• Encourage under-represented groups to take part
• Maintain existing participation levels
• Create lifelong habits of physical activity

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The Role of Role Models

Role models are people whom others admire and wish to imitate. In sport, effective role models can dramatically influence participation.

How Role Models Increase Participation	Example
Inspire young people to try a sport	Mo Farah inspiring young runners from diverse backgrounds
Show that barriers can be overcome	Ellie Simmonds demonstrating what disabled athletes can achieve
Challenge stereotypes	The Lionesses proving women's football is exciting and competitive
Represent under-represented groups	Moeen Ali as a visible British Asian cricketer

For a role model to be effective, the target audience needs to be able to relate to them. A role model who shares characteristics with the individual (gender, ethnicity, disability, background) has a stronger influence.

Exam Tip: Always use named, specific role models in your answers. "A role model can inspire people" is vague. "Mo Farah, as a Somali-British athlete, has inspired young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds to take up running" is precise and scores higher.

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Campaigns and Initiatives

Various campaigns have been designed to target specific groups:

Campaign / Initiative	Target Group	How It Works
This Girl Can	Women and girls	Uses real women (not elite athletes) in advertising to challenge the fear of judgement
Change4Life	Families with young children	Promotes physical activity and healthy eating through fun, accessible messaging
Sporting Equals	Ethnic minorities	Works with NGBs to increase diversity in sport at all levels
Activity Alliance	People with disabilities	Provides resources, training and support to make sport more inclusive
Couch to 5K	Inactive adults	Structured 9-week running programme designed for complete beginners
Parkrun	All groups (free, inclusive)	Free weekly 5K events in local parks; no equipment needed, all abilities welcome

graph TD
    A["Target: Under-Represented Groups"] --> B["Campaigns"]
    A --> C["Initiatives"]
    A --> D["Funding"]
    B --> B1["This Girl Can"]
    B --> B2["Change4Life"]
    C --> C1["Parkrun"]
    C --> C2["Couch to 5K"]
    D --> D1["Government Grants"]
    D --> D2["NGB Investment"]
    style A fill:#1565c0,color:#fff

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The Role of Media Coverage

Increased media coverage of sport directly affects participation:

• The inspiration effect — major events like the Olympics, Paralympics and FIFA Women's World Cup lead to spikes in participation in the sports featured.
• Visibility — sports that are regularly on television attract more participants because people become aware of them and see them as accessible.
• Normalisation — seeing women's sport, disability sport or minority ethnic athletes on TV normalises participation for those groups.

However, media coverage can also have negative effects:

• Over-coverage of a small number of sports (mainly men's football) means other sports are overlooked.
• Sensationalised coverage of negative behaviour (e.g. doping scandals, violence) can damage a sport's image.
• Unequal coverage reinforces the perception that women's sport is less important.

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The Role of National Governing Bodies (NGBs)

Each sport has an NGB — the organisation responsible for governing, promoting and developing that sport in the UK.