However, Sport England said it is “unacceptable” more than half of English children did not exercise enough last year, and called on the Government to take action.
Figures from the organisation’s annual Active Lives Children and Young People Survey, which was completed by nearly 122,500 children in school years 1-11, show 48 per cent of children met the guidance of exercising for an average of 60 minutes or more every day in the 2023-24 academic year.
This was up 2 per cent from the previous year and from 2018-19 before the pandemic.
In Northumberland, just 44 per cent of children met the exercising guidelines, down from 46 per cent last year, but an increase from 43 per cent in 2018-19.
Of the area’s 293 respondents, 39 per cent did less than an average of 30 minutes of activity a day.
Nationally, 23 per cent of children were judged as “fairly active”, meaning they didn’t reach an average of 60 minutes a day this year, and 30 per cent did less than an average of 30 minutes a day.
Tim Hollingsworth, chief executive of Sport England, said successive lockdowns and lack of activities during the pandemic had a “fundamental impact” on children and young people’s negative attitude towards sport.
For more information, go to https://www.sportengland.org/.