Data editing and management: Creation of derived variables

These variables were created using SPSS syntax to calculate the duration, frequency and intensity with which people participate in activities.

These variables were then used to create headline measures of activity, such as level of activity (whether does an average of 60 minutes of moderate plus activity a day across the week).

Details of these variables and how they were created is provided in the User Guide and Code Book.

Data are presented for three categories for overall activity in the last week. The first category includes pupils who meet the Chief Medical Officers' (CMO) guidelines for young people of doing an average of 60 minutes of activity a day across the week.

The second category includes children who do an average of 30-59 minutes on average a day and the third category the children do less than 30 minutes a day. The categories are named:

• Active – Doing an average of 60 minutes or more a day across the week (420+ minutes a week)
• Fairly active – Doing an average of 30-59 minutes a day across the week (210-419 minutes a week)
• Less active – Doing less than an average of 30 minutes a day across the week (less than 210 minutes a week).

In academic year 2017-18 (Year 1), the first category was split into Active every day (at least 60 minutes every day) and Active across the week (an average of 60 minutes or more a day but not every day so there were four categories.

Since academic year 2018-19 (Year 2), the current three category version has been used, bringing it in line with CMO guidelines.  

Government policy aims that children and young people should get 30 minutes of their daily physical activity through the school day and 30 minutes outside of school.

Data are collected on activity during normal school hours and outside normal school hours. Only activity of at least moderate intensity is included in the derived variables.

All activity done by pupils in school year 1-2 was assumed to be moderate, pupils in school year 3-11 were asked about the intensity of activity outside normal school hours and standard assumptions about the intensity of activities during normal school hours were made based on year group and activity type.

For activity during normal school hours, every day is five days/150 minutes (weekdays); for activity outside normal school hours, every day is seven days/210 minutes. Where activity is in a specific location or setting, these categories are used:

• Doing an average of 30 minutes or more every day (210+ minutes a week outside normal school hours/150+ minutes a week during normal school hours)
• Doing less than an average of 30 minutes a day across the week (less than 210 minutes a week outside normal school hours/less than 150 minutes a week during normal school hours).

This differs slightly from the academic year 2017-18 (Year 1) report, where the first category was split into two to distinguish between those who were active every day and those who did 30 minutes on average per day across the week.

Since academic year 2018-19 (Year 2), the current two category version has been used, bringing it in line with CMO guidelines.

The following rules and edits were used in preparing the derived activity variables:

• The questionnaire was set up such that people selected the activities they did. Any activity which was not selected was assumed not to have been done.
• Where respondents provided duration information for an activity outside normal school hours, this was done as response groups (e.g. about half an hour, about three-quarters of an hour) and we allocated a set time for each for creating the derived activity variables. This was based on evidence from an objective measurement study and a standard duration falling within the band was applied. In the objective measurement study pupils used a waist-worn accelerometer and completed the questionnaire so that their objective data could be compared with the data collected in the questionnaire. More detail is provided in the academic year 2017-18 (Year 1) technical report.
• The data have been cleaned such that missing durations for outside normal school hours have been imputed using standard durations for that activity. Pupils were not asked about time spent on activities during normal school hours and so for all activities during normal school hours, durations have been imputed using a standard set of times related to the year group and type of activity based on data for outside normal school hours, information from teachers on PE and break time durations and the results of the objective measurement study. The standard values used are shown in the Code Book.
• Where information on duration, location or intensity was missing, standard rules were used to impute the data so that activity variables could be calculated for every case in the dataset. The standard values used are shown in the Code Book.
• Where pupils mentioned an excessive number of activities over the previous week, the case was dropped from the data. Data were dropped for cases with more than 25 activities per day on average, resulting in 350 cases being dropped from the analysis and the dataset.

Since academic year 2018-19 (Year 2), for a small number of activities the level of intensity has been assumed rather than asked.

This does not affect the comparison with academic year 2017-18 (Year 1) because, though intensity was asked for these activities in academic year 2017-18 (Year 1), intensity was assumed in the creation of derived variables.

In addition to the key measures, a number of other activity and composite-level variables were created to help measure participation in sport and as building blocks for creating the key measures.

The building block measures are also contained in the Active Lives Children and Young People Survey datafile and details of these measures can be found in the User Guide and Code Book.

Note that in the dataset, where there are extreme values for the building block variables (used as the basis for creating final derived variables), these extreme values have been set to missing where the case had not been deleted.

For these cases, the final variables may have a valid value because the way in which final variables have been created effectively caps extremes in a way that the building block variables do not. This should be borne in mind when conducting analysis with the building block variables.

Ungrouped minutes variables have been set to missing for all activities and overall when the respondent reported more than 12 hours of activity (of any intensity) on any weekday or more than nine hours of activity (of any intensity) on any weekend day, or more than 40 activities on any one day. For these cases, all building block minutes variables are set to missing.

This was done by summing the minutes for each individual activity. Further detail about this is provided in the Code Book and User Guide.

The figures for previous years are also included for comparison. This variable relates to the CMO guideline to engage in a variety of types and intensities of physical activity across the week to develop movement skills, muscular fitness, and bone strength.

These included, for example, variables grouping year group, ethnicity, disability and family affluence.

In addition, key variables such as whether watched live sports events, volunteering and swimming ability were rebased into versions with the population as the base, even when the key measure was only asked to a subgroup, based on responses to a previous question.

The data also includes a number of school and geography-based variables, which have been matched onto the data based on the location and unique reference number of the school.

Full details of the demographic, geographic and school-based variables are provided in the User Guide and Code Book.

Examples of volunteering activities include raising funds for sport, being a sports leader or ambassador, coaching, refereeing, umpiring and stewarding, helping with set up and clearing away, helping with refreshments and any other activities which support sport and physical activity.

Activities which only help family members are not included. Activities which involve sport and activity to raise money for sport were not previously included in the measure, although pupils were asked about them but now they count.

Prior to academic year 2023-24 (Year 7), the key measure was volunteered at least twice in the last 12 months, but now it is just once. In the academic year 2024-25 report, data for previous years have been updated to match the new measures.

These questions were asked to pupils in school year 5-11. Pupils in school year 5-6 and school year 7-11 were asked about a different range of activities (appropriate to their age) and so information on roles is presented in separate tables for these two year groups.

Pupils were asked whether they had ‘volunteered or given your time to do any of the following activities’. The question for pupils in school years 5-6 included the clarification: ‘Think only about when you do them to help with sports, exercise or dance’.

Pupils could report on other activities not on the list. These were subsequently back-coded and ineligible activities such as helping at Brownies or running cake sales were excluded.

All pupils who had reported that they helped with at least one type of activity were asked whether they had given their time for these activities more than once in the last year. Only those who had done so more than once were included in the measure.

Note that while ‘coached or instructed’ is a separate category for school year 7-11, for school year 5-6 any back-coded answers for coaching are included in ‘other’.

Similarly, ‘setting up or clearing away’ is a separate category for school year 5-6 but for school year 7-11 any back-coded answers of this type are included in ‘other’. The results for school year 5-6 and 7-11 are presented separately because of the differences in codes.

Physical literacy

Up to academic year 2023-24 (Year 7) there were five questions about attitudes included in the school year 3 to 11 questionnaire together with some questions about motivations.

These were based on the 2016 concept of physical literacy (‘Whitehead, M. (2016) Physical Literacy’, International Physical Literacy Association).

This academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), the attitude and motivation-related questions changed in response to a newly published physical literacy consensus statement from September 2023.

Five existing attitude statements from previous years were retained. School year 3-6 pupils were asked the first four and school year 7-11 pupils were asked all of them.

The knowledge statement (years 7-11 only) changed from “I know how to get involved and improve my skills in lots of different types of exercise and sport” to “I know where and how to get involved in exercise and sports”.

In academic year 2024-25 (Year 8) three of the existing motivation questions were removed and the question wording for the other three existing motivation questions for year 3-11 pupils was updated as part of the move to the new physical literacy consensus statement. 

The question wording at MO_Opp_c was updated from “I feel that I have the opportunity to be physically active” to “I feel that I have the opportunity to exercise and play sports”. 

The question wording at MO_Fit_c was updated from “I exercise to stay fit and healthy” to “I exercise and play sports to stay fit and healthy”.

The question wording at MO_Relax_c was updated from “I exercise to help me relax and worry less about things” to “I exercise and play sports to help me relax and worry less about things”.

Other new questions needed to for the new physical literacy framework were added to the questionnaire. For all the statements (attitudes and motivations), pupils were asked to respond on a scale with the following categories: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree, can’t say. 

In academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), the individual attitude statements are not reported on in the tables but are available via the Online Tool once the data is uploaded.

Instead the results are combined to create new measures of physical literacy. The data tables report on the aspects of physical literacy within the consensus statement.

There are three broad themes of physical literacy and each theme has a number of domains. The attitude statements detailed above are designed to capture the essence of each domain and are aligned accordingly, typically one for junior-age children and two for secondary-age young people.

Where two statements are included, we present data for that domain as the most positive response across the two. 

Data for physical literacy is presented by theme:

• the proportion that agree or strongly agree to at least one statement for every domain within that theme
• the number of domains within that theme they strongly agree to at least one statement for
• by domain.

Associations with physical activity, wellbeing and community and individual development are also presented by number of domains with strong agreement within each of the themes.

The domains within each theme and the statements used to ask pupils about them are described below. Where no year groups are mentioned, the statement is asked to all pupils from years 3-11.

Where a statement was in the survey previously, we have indicated this and referenced the term which was used to describe it in previous reporting.

Positive and Meaningful Relationships

Three domains (associations with physical activity, wellbeing and development presented for 0,1,2,3 domains with strong agreement).

Meaning

• "Taking part in exercise and sports matters to me"

Value

• "Exercising and doing sports makes me feel better about myself"
• "I exercise and play sports to help me relax and worry less about things" (years 7-11 only) (Adapted existing statement - motivation)

Enjoyment

• "I enjoy taking part in exercise and sports" (Existing statement - enjoyment)

Learning and development

Four domains (associations with physical activity, wellbeing and development presented for 0,1,2,3, 4 domains with strong agreement).

Move

• "I find exercise and sports easy" (Existing statement - competence)
• "I am good at exercise and sports" (year 7-11 only)

Connect 

• "I work well with other children when doing exercise and sports"
• "I am kind when playing and being active with other children when doing exercise and sports" (years 7-11 only)

Think

• "I understand why exercise and sports are good for me" (Existing statement - understanding)
• "I know where and how to get involved in exercise and sports" (years 7-11 only) (Adapted existing statement - knowledge)

Feel

• "I feel confident when I exercise and play sports" (Existing statement - confidence)
• "I keep taking part in exercise and sports when it is challenging" (years 7-11 only)

Positive experiences

Two domains for years 7-11. For years 3-6 only, the inclusion domain is presented as no question was asked for opportunity for this age group.

In associations with physical activity, wellbeing and development for years 7-11 agreement with all domains means two domains and for years 3-6 agreement with all domains means strong agreement with the inclusion domain, as no question was asked for opportunity.

Inclusion

• “The adults who run my exercise and sports activities listen to me when I have an idea.” (years 3-6 only)
• “I feel my opinions are valued by the adults who organise my exercise and sport activities" (years 7-11 only)
• "Outside of school there are places I can exercise that are inclusive and welcoming” (years 7-11 only)
• “I see people who are similar to me if I exercise outside of school" (years 7-11 only)

Opportunity (years 7-11 only) 

• "I feel that I have the opportunity to be physically active" (years 7-11 only) (adapted existing statement - motivation)

As the new questions were introduced in academic year 2024-25, the results for the new physical literacy questions are only presented for academic year 2024-25 (year 8).

School year 1-2 pupils were asked about their attitudes in a short questionnaire, which was unchanged in academic year 2024-25 (Year 8). They were asked:

• Do you like playing sport? (I love, I like, I don’t like, I hate… data tables report on the percentage saying I love) (enjoyment)
• Do you find sport easy? (yes, no, don’t know… data tables report on the percentage saying yes) (competence)
• Do you like being active? This includes things like running games, riding a bike or scooter, walking, and dancing. (I love, I like, I don’t like, I hate… data tables report on the percentage saying I love) (enjoyment)
• Do you like swimming? (I love, I like, I don’t like, I hate, I don’t know… data tables report on the percentage saying I love) (enjoyment) but included under swimming in reporting.

Results for individual attitude questions for pupils in year 1-2 are included in the published data.

Ability to ride a bike

Following cognitive testing, a new question about ability to ride a bike was added in academic year 2020-21 (Year 4) and has been included since, including in academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), but are not reported on in the data tables.

‘Can you ride a bike?’. This was only asked to pupils in school year 5 and 6. Answer options were ‘Yes, without stabilisers’, ‘Yes, with stabilisers’, ‘Yes, an adaptive bike or adaptive trike for children with disabilities or special needs’, ‘No’ and ‘Don’t know’.

Wellbeing and individual and community development (Outcomes)

Three dimensions of mental wellbeing are presented: happiness, life satisfaction and the extent to which they feel the things they do in their life are worthwhile.

For school year 1-2, a smiley face question was used, which is expressed as three categories in the tables: happy, neither happy nor sad, sad.

For school year 3-6, the standard ONS happiness yesterday question was used.  For school year 7-11, the standard ONS happiness yesterday, life satisfaction and worthwhile questions were used.

Happiness: "How happy did you feel yesterday?" (school year 3-11)

Life satisfaction: "How satisfied are you with life nowadays?" (school year 7-11)

Feeling your life is worthwhile: "To what extent are the things you do in your life worthwhile" (school year 7-11)

These three questions are answered on an 11-point scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all and 10 is completely. The results are presented as mean scores.

The standard ONS wellbeing question about anxiety was not included as it is not recommended for use in children under 14 years old.

Individual and community development was captured from school year 3-11 pupils through a question about trying difficult things (positive perceived self-efficacy) and a question about trusting peers (positive levels of social trust).

Each question is asked on a 5-point scale from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). The questions asked were:

Individual development: Using the question "If I find something difficult, I keep trying until I can do it" (school year 3-11)

Community development: Using the question "How much do you feel you can trust people who are a similar age to you?" (school year 3-11)

Since academic year 2018-19 (Year 2), the results for strongly agree have been shown, which differs from the academic year 2017-18 (Year 1) report when combined agree and strongly agree results were shown.

The tables show the wellbeing and development indicators by demographic characteristics as well as split by level of activity and volunteering behaviour.

See previous sections for activity and volunteering definitions. The findings for these variables can be found in Tables for Levels of Activity and Volunteering.

In the Outcomes tables they are just used to look at levels of wellbeing and development split by level of activity and volunteering.

The means for wellbeing tables are the mean calculated across the groups to which the answer relates from the scores of 0-10, which were used as answers to the questions.

Loneliness: In academic year 2019-20 (Year 3), the harmonised ONS loneliness question was included for the first time for pupils in school years 7-11 and continued to be asked subsequent academic years, including academic year 2024-25 (Year 8).

This asked “How often do you feel lonely?” with answers of often/always, some of the time, occasionally, hardly ever, never. The data about loneliness are not included in the data tables but are available via the Online tool.

Sports spectating

This is measured as having watched two or more live sports events, whether professional or amateur, over the previous 12 months.

Pupils were asked: 

• Have you done this activity (attended a live sports event) in the past 12 months?
• How many live sporting events have you been to see since last year? 

Additional information provided was: ‘Include all matches and competitions, including professional sport as well as watching family and friends compete. Please do not include any events that you took part in yourself, or events you watched on TV’.

Answers of ‘twice’ or ‘three or more’ were included in this measure.

School year 7-11 pupils were asked to give more details if they selected ‘prefer to type in’.

The details given were checked and a decision was made about whether to leave an answer as other or to back-code to male or female because the detail provided described them as male or female.

Where answers did not appear to indicate that they were male, female, non-binary or prefer to self-describe other, they were coded as ‘prefer not to say’ or gender uncodeable.

The gender uncodeable category was needed because some pupils used the 'other' specify space to write irrelevant information which did not relate to their gender identity.

The results are presented for boy, girl and other (meaning they described their gender in another way).

Year group is the answer reported by the pupil or their parent. In some cases, this was inconsistent with the age given but we took the year group as given and did not recode.

A derived variable of gender identity and school year combined has been included. The year group breakdown for the gender identity category ‘other’ has not been shown because of small base sizes.

Ethnicity

Parents of school year 1-2 pupils were asked about their child’s ethnicity using the full ONS standard question with a breakdown of ethnic groups. These have been grouped into broader categories for analysis.

Ethnicity for school year 3-11 pupils was self-reported and used a simplified question which offered these categories: White (British or English), White (not British or English), Mixed e.g. White and Black, White and Asian, Asian or British Asian, Black or Black British, Another group (please type in), Prefer not to say.

Another group answers were back-coded into existing categories. For school year 1-2 pupils, ethnicity was reported by the parents.

In the parent questionnaire, the full census list of ethnic groups was offered and answers of Chinese have been coded into other. In the pupil questionnaire, Chinese was not offered so answers may be found in Asian or Other depending on the pupil’s preference.

A derived variable of gender and ethnicity combined has been included. The ethnic breakdown for the gender category ‘other’ has not been shown in published report tables because of small base sizes.

Family Affluence Scale

This is a standard scale developed for the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children Survey (an international study of 11-15-year-olds).

Minor modifications were made to the questions to make them suitable for parents and for younger children for whom the scale was not originally designed.

The updated version of the scale was used, which asks the following questions:

• We would now like to ask you some questions about your home and your family. Does your family own a car, van or truck?
• Do you have your own bedroom for yourself?
• How many computers does your family own (including laptops and tablets/iPads, but NOT including game consoles and smartphones)?
• How many times did you and your family travel out of England for a holiday last year?
• How many bathrooms (room with a shower/bath or both) are in your home?

Answers to these questions were scored according to the answers given, resulting in an overall score between 0 and 13 for the standard Family Affluence Score measure. Scores of 0-6=low, 7-10=medium, 11-13=high.

Note that in the autumn term of academic year 2017-18 (Year 1), the car question only had yes/no categories when it should have had none, one, two or more.

This means that scores in the autumn term have a maximum of 12. Adjustments have been made to the groupings to allow for this in the academic year 2017-18 (Year 1) data.

In academic years from 2018-19 (Year 2) to academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), the correct question was asked throughout the survey year.

In academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), reporting the standard Family Affluence Scale (FAS) variable created from answers to all of the above questions has been used.

In academic years 2020-21 (Year 4) and 2021-22 (Year 5), an adjusted FAS-derived variable was created and included in the data tables.

Owing to COVID-19 restrictions, it was not possible or was difficult, regardless of social background, to travel out of England at some points over the ‘previous 12 months’ for most of academic year 2020-21 and academic year 2021-22.

Therefore, a second FAS variable was created and was used for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 reports, excluding answers to this question.

This means that an overall score would be between 0 and 10, so the groupings for the bands were adjusted – scores of 0-5=low, 6-8=medium, 9-10=high.

It is important to note that the bands for the adjusted FAS variable are not comparable with the bands on the standard FAS variable.

The adjusted FAS variable was created retrospectively for previous survey years for comparability and only this adjusted FAS variable was included in the academic year 2020-21 (Year 4) and 2021-22 (Year 5) reporting.

It was not possible to create standard FAS for 2020-21 and 2021-22 because of the restrictions on travel and so figures for FAS for those years have been suppressed in the tables in the 2024-25 report.

Disabilities or long-term health conditions and number of impairments

The questions asked about disability or long-term health conditions were updated in academic year 2019-20 (Year 3) and have remained the same since.

In academic years 2017-18 (Year 1) and 2018-19 (Year 2), the questions about disability or health conditions varied by age but since academic year 2019-20 (Year 3), all school year 3-11 pupils and parents of school year 1-2 pupils have been asked the same questions.

Respondents were asked: “Do you (Does your son/ daughter) have a disability, special need or illness (e.g. autism, dyslexia, or asthma) which makes it difficult for you (him/her) to do any of these things” and shown a list of tasks which included things like ‘moving around including walking and running’ and ‘concentrating and paying attention’.

If the answer was ‘yes’, they were asked which of those things they have difficulty with. If they selected any of the things in the list, they were then asked: “Do any of these disabilities, special needs or illnesses have a big effect on your life?” (to identify whether the disability or health condition is limiting) and: “Do you think any of these disabilities, special needs or illnesses will last for a year or more?” (to identify whether the disability or health condition is long-term).

Those who said 'yes' to the initial question, and both the question about the disability or health condition having a big effect on their life and whether they think it will last for a year or more, were defined as having a long-term limiting disability or health condition (reported in the data tables).

The number and type of impairment was derived from the information given about specific things they found difficult to do and whether that impairment is long-term limiting. It should be noted that this is the number of impairments from a set list.

Those in the no long-term limiting disability or health condition category are those who reported no to the initial disability or health condition question or no to the disability or health condition having a big effect on their life or whether they think it will last for a year or more.

Note that because this was a new question for the academic year 2019-20 (Year 3) survey, data on disability and impairments is not displayed in the tables for academic year 2017-18 (Year 1) or, for trends tables, academic year 2018-19 (Year 2).

Income Deprivation in Children Index (IDACI)

In academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), results are presented by income deprivation (2019). More information about IDACI is available on the government website about indices of deprivation.

This has been matched onto the data using the postcode of the school attended by the pupil. This is based on three groupings of deciles representing low, medium and high levels of area income deprivation in the postcode area of the school the child or young person attends.

It is important to note this describes the characteristics of the location of their school, rather than their home.

This has been created for all academic years presented in this report but this break was only introduced into the tables in academic year 2022-23 (Year 6).

Characteristics of inequality 

This provides an indication of the number of inequality-related characteristics reported by the pupil based on gender, ethnicity, family affluence and access to outdoor space. This is calculated from individual pupil characteristics based on their survey responses.

This was a new measure in the tables for academic year 2023-24 (Year 7) and is available for2023-24 and 2024-2025 but not for 2017-18.

Term

Results are presented by term in which the pupil completed the questionnaire and also a combined variable of term by school stage.

Since the questions about activity cover activity in the previous week, this also shows the results for activity levels in different terms of each academic year.

This information also fed into decisions about imputation of during normal school hours session lengths for pupil activity-derived variables, alongside evidence from the objective measurement study.

For some questions, other answers given by the teachers were back-coded into existing or new categories and incorporated into the data.

In the teacher dataset, some derived variables grouping different types of facilities and activities are included. Derivation has also been used to group year groups, roles and responsibilities and to set some ‘don’t know’ answers to missing.

Teachers’ answers to questions about food education, school food standards, participation in PE and active travel to school were used to create a Healthy Schools rating for the school.

This is not included in the published outputs but has been provided to schools in individual school-level reports.

As the 2024-25 academic year was unaffected by COVID restrictions, the previous adjustments made in year 2020-21 (Year 4) and kept for year 2021-22 (Year 5) relating to the impacts of COVID-19 have been removed for subsequent years.