Over 465,000 girls took part in the Biggest Ever Football Session on Friday 8 March. To coincide with International Women’s Day, a record-breaking 465,000 girls from 5000 schools across England took part in the FA and Barclays’ third Biggest Ever Football Session, as part of the ‘Let Girls Play’ campaign.

This year, the Biggest Ever Football Session saw more registrations than ever before, with 71 per cent of the schools who have signed up having never done so before, highlighting the ever-growing demand for girls to play football. 76 per cent of schools who have taken part in the previous sessions have stated the activity has influenced equal access in their school. The commitment to increase participation was delivered thanks to campaigning and this was on the back off the EURO 2022-winning Lionesses and an open letter they addressed to prospective Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss which looked to increase the chance for girls to play the game in school with participation at only 63 per cent in 2022.

This was Etone Colleges second year involved with the initiative and we made sure it was bigger than last year with the help of the Etone Football Education Academy. This year saw the Academy players both Male and Female delivering sessions to a range of Girls across Year 7 and 8 with a variety of warm up, skill based activities and game scenarios to give the pupils an experience of all areas of the game. During the day the academy delivered high quality sessions to over 150 Female students. Well done to all involved.