Playing netball isn't making your daughters fat or thin - it's making them happy

Coach and player Claire Keen explains what's to love about the hard-core, athletic sport of netball - and explains why primary schools are failing to engage children in sport.

England netball
New world order: England's Pamela Cookey beats Rebecca Bulley of Australia to the ball as the home side claimed a remarkable series victory in front of 7,000 spectators at Wembley Arena Credit: Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The great thing about statistics is they can back up any case you like. My (unverifiable) statistics show 99 per cent of the girls I teach netball to love it, and also that 100 per cent of them are not overweight.

The popularity of netball in Britain

Sally Peck seems to have it in for netball. She must have had a bad experience of it at school, and she clearly hasn’t been tuning into to live domestic and international netball coverage on Sky every week and hasn’t noted the actual facts regarding netball in Britain, such as the 158,000 women that participate in this high-octane calorie-burning sport on weekly basis

Nor has she researched Back To Netball, one of the biggest schemes of getting girls and women aged 16+ back into the sport. This particular program has seen 40,000 women and girls return to netball. Presumably they had not ‘secretly’ hated it. By the way, the idea of a player being concerned about breaking a nail (as suggested by Sally) is laughable. All players’ nails have to be short in order not to take someone’s eye out while playing this fast, dynamic sport and they are checked by the umpire before every game.

Both my daughters (one in primary school aged ten and one in secondary aged thirteen) play the game at Academy Netball Club in addition to whatever netball they can lay their short-nailed hands on at school. The training is hard-core and creates athletic, fit and fast players. Sprinting, strength, conditioning and ball skills are taught – these girls are strong, fast, fit and confident.

In addition, they have team mates and a real love of the game that no one can measure.

I concede that, yes, 20 years ago netball had a different vibe going, and yes, I am certain that some of the teachers still delivering netball sessions at school are from that era. We all can relate to the fact that it’s hard to enjoy a subject when the teaching isn’t inspiring.

The state of PE

Netball aside, the real issue here is how to keep children motivated to take part in exercise and, like most things, the habits need to be put in place early. You can’t start teaching a child manners at 13 - it’s definitely too late. It’s the same with participating in sport.

It’s a fact that our young children aren’t doing enough sport and, as they become teenagers, participation drops off even more.

As Sally says, it is absurd that young girls aren’t playing football at school. Mixed sport should be encouraged in every way and in some primary schools in England boys and girls do play Hi-5 netball together. Outside school, my youngest daughter plays football, as well as netball, tennis and cricket. She can bowl an awesome seamer, as I could when I myself was a sports mad child, but these are all extra-curricular activities and I have made the effort to seek them out.

This kind of passion for sport is born at primary level, just like love of learning, good manners and social integration, get any of that wrong and we’re all in trouble.

So why are our girls not passionate about playing? Primary schools in the state sector are uncomfortable with the concept of competition and perhaps this is partly to blame for removing the ‘X-factor’ element from netball and other sports.

They tend to offer a range of taster sessions of various sports, which is often outsourced to a company that will come in and deliver these sessions. The girls can’t get really good at any one sport as they aren’t taught it for long enough. Who is good at anything if they haven’t been given the chance to develop the skills?

An additional issue with primary school sports sessions is that the curriculum requires us to cover healthy eating, and an understanding of warming up and cooling down. Often these are taught within the allotted time for ‘exercise’. In the classes I take we talk about these things during a cool-down stretch, not instead of the exercise.

We need to take a look at the netball programs in Australia where girls play the sport from a young age, maintain their playing through secondary school and are champions on the world stage.

Of course any exercise is a good thing. Yogalates! Zumba! Great!

But netball is packed with bonus rewards, the most important of which is being part of a team. Having friends with something in common and having fun while burning 450 calories per hour compared to the 175 calories you can expect to rack up after an hour of yoga? It’s hard to beat.

We all agree that we need our children to be active and passionate about playing sports. We need educated parents, inspiring teachers, and newspaper articles that don’t slate sports of any kind.

Claire Kean is a former Sports TV producer/director, a netball coach. Chair of Middlesex County Netball League and a "slim" netball player