Judy Murray leads Edinburgh debate on the future of girls' sport in Scotland
Women's sport campaigner chaired a panel at St George's School in Edinburgh as Scottish Women and Girls in Sport Week marks its 10th year
Judy Murray has told an event at an Edinburgh school that physical education must be "taken seriously" to prevent girls from dropping out of sport in their early teens.
The tennis coach and campaigner joined sports governing bodies and pupils from 10 schools at the city’s St George's School to discuss the future of women's and girls' sport in Scotland.
The Fearless Women in Sport event was part of Scottish Women and Girls in Sport Week, a national initiative led by Active Scotland and the Scottish Government which is marking its 10th anniversary.
St George's, the only all-through girls' school in Edinburgh, organised the day in partnership with the charity Scottish Women in Sport.
The audience of around 300 also included Olympic medallist Eilidh Doyle, educators, sports leaders and representatives of the sporting workforce, along with governing bodies and sports organisations including SportScotland, Cricket Scotland, Netball Scotland, Scottish Cycling, Scottish Gymnastics, Scottish Rowing, Scottish Squash and Volleyball Scotland.
Ms Murray led a panel discussion on what the next 10 years should bring. The discussions ranged from successes such as the greater visibility of women and girls playing sport, to the importance of role models, male allies and developing pathways, to challenges such as the need for more government funding to sustain continued growth.
Murray has worked for many years to get more women and girls into sport. She created the tennis programmes Miss-Hits and She Rallies and the girls' leadership programme Learn to Lead, and was awarded an OBE in 2017 for services to tennis, women in sport and charity.
Speaking at the event, she said: “Women's sport is in a far better place than when I started coaching, and girls today can watch women in a way my generation never could. The visibility is much better but seeing it on television only gets you so far.
“There is still a lot of work to be done. We still lose too many girls in their early teens, and if we want them to stay, we need PE taken seriously in every school, many more women coaching, and more chances for girls to play and compete with other girls at both recreational and performance level.”
Sign up to our breaking newsletters to get the biggest news straight to your inbox as it's happening
After the panel, pupils put their questions to the speakers before an expo where they could connect with the sports organisations and find out how to get involved.
The event took place days after the Women's Sport Trust published Women's Sport in Scotland: Understanding the Opportunity, research commissioned by the Scottish Government into how people in Scotland engage with women's sport. It found that 47 per cent say the success of Scottish female athletes makes them proud, but only 17 per cent feel connected to them.
Carol Chandler-Thompson, Head of St George's, said: “Having Judy here, alongside Eilidh, Trudy, Lorna and WP, meant girls could meet and hear directly from people who have succeeded in sport and are shaping where it goes next. If you can see it, you can be it.
“We haven't scratched the surface of what women's sport in Scotland can achieve, and the girls in the room today are the ones who will take it there.”