CensusAtSchool 10 (10/11)
At the time of writing, early December 2010, there were 5375 responses from male (48%) and female (52%) learners with age range 11 to 18 inclusive.
Parents, guardians and carers (here on referred to as ‘parents’) of the learners had the opportunity to take part in this phase. Nearly 55% of all learners who contributed data (1,698 girls and 1,243 boys) input their parents’ responses to the online questionnaire. The bar chart below suggests that in this sample girls are more likely to ask their female parent, and boys are more likely to ask their male parent to complete their section of the Phase 10 questionnaire.
“What is your favourite football team?” is a question asked in both Phase 1 (2000–2001) and Phase 10 (2010–2011) and in the parents’ questionnaire in Phase 10.
More learners support football teams in the Phase 10 sample compared with the Phase 1 sample (79% in Phase 1, 83% in Phase 10.)
In both samples Manchester United is the most popular team but learners’ support for this team seems to have declined more than others in the last 10 years.
Teams that have increased learners’ support from the sample in 2000/2001 to the sample 10 years later in 2010/2011 are Portsmouth, Chelsea, Arsenal, Hull and Manchester City.
However, this chart may be misleading because of the differences between the numbers of responses from the different regions of England. Most responses were from learners in the South of England (1563 responses). The number of responses from the North of England and the Midlands were 599 and 546 respectively.
The regional bar graph shows that, for this sample in Phase 10, Arsenal is the most popular football team in the south but in the north and midlands Manchester United is.
Phase 9 asked which subjects pupils would like removed from the English school curriculum. The results are surprising with most boys and most girls wanting to remove Religious Education with Mathematics coming third. In Phase 10 we asked both learners and their parents to state their favourite subject at school. The results are displayed in the percentage bar chart below.
Maths and English are ranked the seventh and eighth favourite subject by learners whereas parents have ranked these as second and third respectively.
Learners and their parents selected the favourite way they keep up with the news. Male parents in the sample (1293 total responses) prefer to read a newspaper (34%) or watch the news (40%) on the television, whereas female parents (1293 total responses), boys (2937 total responses) and girls (2598 total responses) seem to prefer to watch the news on the television (52%, 48% and 38% respectively). It is interesting that some learners do read a newspaper and that girls like to keep up with the news by talking to friends.
These early results also show that boys like sports’ news whereas girls like to keep up with entertainment news.
Although, the boys who keep up with the news by reading newspapers are most interested in the sport section (52%) and the largest percentage of the girls in entertainment news (29%), this is not the whole story (224 girls, 290 boys). Thirty-eight percent of girls who are most interested in keeping up with entertainment news prefer to do this by watching television.
Learners enjoy watching comedy on the television the most. Also there seems to be differences between what girls and boys enjoy watching except when it comes to films.
With the 2012 Olympics approaching children were asked to choose the Olympic sport they most liked to watch. The following table shows the Olympic sports in which the UK won medals in 2008 and, in order of popularity, the learners’ favourite sports to watch.
| Olympic Sport | Number of Medals the UK won in 2008 Olympics | Ranking of children’s favourite Olympic sports to watch | Olympic Sport | Number of Medals the UK won in 2008 Olympics | Ranking of children’s favourite Olympic sports to watch |
Cycling | 14 | 10th | Canoeing | 3 | 24th |
Swimming | 6 | 3rd | Equestrian | 2 | 8th |
Rowing | 6 | 23rd | Gymnastics | 1 | 1st |
Sailing | 6 | 26th | Taekwondo | 1 | 18th |
Athletics | 4 | 4th | Modern Pentathlon | 1 | 30th |
Boxing | 3 | 7th |
