Insight Angels plays key role in campaign prioritising sport for children

UK –  A freelance insights agency has played a key role in a new Sport England and National Lottery-funded initiative aimed at transforming the way young people are coached in sport and physical activity.

Kye Whyte_crop

Insight Angels, founded in 2015, is one of the key agencies behind Play Their Way, a campaign that experts say could lead to more Team GB Olympic medals by prioritising children’s enjoyment of sports.

The initiative is working with over 2.5m coaches in the UK to build a grassroots movement aimed at increasing and improving child-first coaching.

The campaign launched after a survey by Sport England found that just 47 per cent of children regularly exercise.

Insight gathered as part of the project includes extensive Sport England research into youth activity levels and experiences.

This revealed that a child-first coaching approach is the key to helping young people develop a genuine and lifelong love for being active and staying in sport longer.   

Research also highlights how enjoyment is one of the biggest motivators for children and young people to get active, 

The multi-agency campaign, it is hoped, will help drive long-term behaviour change amongst the UK’s coaching community by providing a range of resources and starting a national conversation on how children and young people are coached in sport. 

Barbara Langer, co-founder and director of Insight Angels, said: “Insight and evaluation are central to the strategy and we’ll continue to bring in the voices of the children and coaches as a critical input to decision-making as we move forward.”

The premise of Insight Angels is that businesses can avoid taking on permanent staff by utilising its ad-hoc insight support.

Phil Smith, the executive director for partnerships at Sport England, said the campaign could lead to more sporting success.

He said: “If you give kids a good experience, more kids would play. I am also certain that if kids are not playing, they couldn’t win anything, let alone an Olympic medal. So our prime objective is to keep kids involved in physical and mental activity."

We hope you enjoyed this article.
Research Live is published by MRS.

The Market Research Society (MRS) exists to promote and protect the research sector, showcasing how research delivers impact for businesses and government.

Members of MRS enjoy many benefits including tailoured policy guidance, discounts on training and conferences, and access to member-only content.

For example, there's an archive of winning case studies from over a decade of MRS Awards.

Find out more about the benefits of joining MRS here.

0 Comments


Display name

Email

Join the discussion

Newsletter
Stay connected with the latest insights and trends...
Sign Up
Latest From MRS

Our latest training courses

Our new 2025 training programme is now launched as part of the development offered within the MRS Global Insight Academy

See all training

Specialist conferences

Our one-day conferences cover topics including CX and UX, Semiotics, B2B, Finance, AI and Leaders' Forums.

See all conferences

MRS reports on AI

MRS has published a three-part series on how generative AI is impacting the research sector, including synthetic respondents and challenges to adoption.

See the reports

Progress faster...
with MRS 
membership

Mentoring

CPD/recognition

Webinars

Codeline

Discounts