Why Confidence Matters at School, and How PE and Football Build It

A confident child is not the loudest child in the room. It is the child who puts a hand up knowing the answer might be wrong, who tries the hard question, and who goes again after a mistake. That willingness to try is what this article is about, and why PE, football and every other form of physical activity are among the best places to build it.

If you are a parent in Diss or the surrounding villages, or a teacher in a Norfolk or Suffolk school, you have probably seen both versions of the same child: the one who is relaxed and brave on the pitch, and the one who goes quiet in the classroom. They are the same child. The difference is how safe it feels to try.

A story from home

I know this because I have lived it with my own son.

At 13 and 14, he was angry and dismissive. He did not have a good picture of himself, and it showed in how he spoke, how he carried himself and how he dealt with other people. There was no drive to achieve anything. School was not something he enjoyed, and I could see that he did not think he was capable of much more than he was already doing.

What changed things was not a lecture from me or a better school report. It was facing challenges outside of school. Through football and sport, he started to see what he could actually do. He could see his own progression: the thing he could not do last month, he could do now, because he had kept going. That was the first time he had real proof that effort leads somewhere.

Once he saw that, other things followed. He began to understand his own self-worth and the potential he had. He started to see the kind of life he wanted to live, and what it would take to get there. Before, he had no direct route and no picture of who he wanted to become. Now he had a way of thinking: face the challenge, overcome it, and progress.

That is what I mean when I say confidence is not about being loud. It is about knowing, from experience, that you can face something difficult and come out the other side. For a teenager who is about to start building a life for himself, there are few things more valuable.

Many young people are in the same place he was. They do not have goals or challenges that stretch them, so they have no plan for who they want to become or what it takes to get there. Sport can give them both: a challenge to work at, and a visible record of getting better. It will not suit every child the same way, but it is one of the most accessible places to start.

What confidence really means for a child

Confidence is often described as feeling sure of yourself. For children, a more useful definition is this: confidence is acting even when you are not sure it will go well. A confident child still feels nervous. They just do not let the nerves make the decision.

This matters because it changes what adults can do. You cannot tell a child to feel confident. You can give them repeated, safe chances to try something hard, fail a little, recover, and see that nothing terrible happened. That cycle is how confidence is built, and it is exactly what a well-run PE lesson or football session provides many times in 45 minutes.

Why this is a bigger issue than it sounds

School is a high-pressure place for many young people. In The Children's Society's 2025 Good Childhood Report, 43% of children and young people said they were very or quite worried about getting good grades in school or college, the top worry in that survey, ahead of rising prices (40%) and crime (38%). The report also found that average happiness was significantly lower than when the long-running Understanding Society survey began, across all six aspects of life measured, and that 9% of the children who took part had low wellbeing.

Those figures do not tell us that confidence is the cause. They tell us that worry about school is widespread, which is the context in which a child's belief in their own ability matters.

How confidence shows up in school performance

A child's belief in their own ability does not change what they know, but it changes what they are willing to do with it. In practice, confidence tends to show up in four everyday ways:

Asking and answering. Children who fear being wrong stay quiet, so teachers cannot see what they understand and gaps go unnoticed.

Facing difficulty. A hard task is a challenge to one child and proof of failure to another. The second child gives up sooner.

Recovering from mistakes. Every pupil gets things wrong. Confident pupils treat a wrong answer as information. Anxious pupils treat it as a verdict.

Joining in. Confidence affects friendships, group work and willingness to try new subjects, all of which feed into how much a child gets from school.

There is some data on the third point from Sport England's Active Lives Children and Young People survey for 2024-25. Asked whether they keep trying when something is difficult, 38% of the most active children strongly agreed, compared with 31% of fairly active children and 29% of the least active. This is an association, not proof that activity causes persistence, since more persistent children may also be more likely to be active. It is still a useful pointer to where the habit of trying is practised.

What the evidence says about activity and attainment

It is worth being straight about this, because some articles overstate it. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), which reviews classroom evidence for schools in England, rates the evidence on physical activity as high-quality, drawing on 136 studies, and reports a small positive impact on academic attainment of about two months' additional progress over a year. It describes the cost as very low overall.

Two details from the EEF are worth knowing:

• The quality of the programme and how well it links to learning seems to matter more than the type of activity.
• Shorter sessions of up to 30 minutes, repeated over a term, may work better than longer ones, and the effects are at least as large in secondary schools as in primary.

The EEF also notes that activity brings important benefits for health, wellbeing and physical development in their own right. So the honest message is not that football will raise exam grades. It is that regular, well-planned activity gives a modest academic lift, and that it supports the confidence, wellbeing and attendance that make learning possible.

Why PE and physical activity matter so much

The UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines for children and young people aged 5 to 18 recommend an average of at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day across the week, spread through the day, with activity that makes children breathe faster and feel warmer. The examples they give include play, running, cycling, active travel, sport, PE and dance. Among the benefits they list are improved confidence and social skills, better sleep, and improved concentration and learning.

Many children are not getting there. Sport England's Active Lives survey for the 2024-25 academic year found that 49.1% of children and young people in England were active (an average of 60 minutes or more a day), 22.5% were fairly active (30 to 59 minutes), and 28.4%, around 2.1 million children, were less active, doing under 30 minutes a day on average. The same survey recorded average happiness scores of 7.1 out of 10 for active children, 6.9 for fairly active and 6.7 for less active. The gaps are small and show association rather than cause, but they point the same way.

For most children, school is where this activity is most reliably available. That is why PE matters beyond fitness:

It is for everyone. A PE lesson reaches children who would never join a club, including those who feel they are not sporty.

It teaches trying in public. Children attempt a skill in front of peers, get it wrong, and carry on. Few classroom tasks offer so many small, low-stakes chances to do this.

It builds social confidence. Teams, partners and shared goals give children practice at encouraging others, disagreeing kindly and being part of something.

It gives a break that helps learning. The CMO guidelines list improved concentration and learning among the benefits of being active.

In England, PE is a compulsory part of the National Curriculum. At Key Stage 1, pupils learn team games with simple attacking and defending tactics. At Key Stage 2, they take part in competitive games, modified where appropriate, and apply basic principles of attacking and defending. Football is named in the curriculum as an example of a game schools can use.

How football builds confidence in practice

Football is not magic, and it only builds confidence when it is coached well. A session where the same three children get all the touches and everyone else waits in a queue will do the opposite. What follows is coaching practice rather than a research finding, but it is what good sessions are designed around.

Moment in a football session	The confidence skill it practises
Missing a shot, then being passed the ball again	Recovering from a mistake and trying again straight away
Small-sided games (3v3, 4v4)	More touches, more decisions, nowhere to hide, so every child is involved
Being asked to pick the next activity or lead the warm-up	Speaking up and taking responsibility in front of others
Encouraging a team-mate who has just made an error	Using a supportive voice, which also changes how children talk to themselves
Learning a new skill in stages, with a visible improvement	Seeing evidence that effort leads to progress
Playing in a mixed-ability group with fair rules	Belonging, whatever the starting level

Three principles keep a session confidence-building rather than confidence-damaging:

1. Maximum touches, minimum waiting. Children who spend a session in a queue learn that they are on the edge of the group.
2. Praise effort and decisions, not just goals. "I liked that you tried again after that miss" teaches more than "great goal".
3. Make it safe to be wrong. Mistakes are expected and handled calmly, by the coach first.

The same principles apply to girls and boys, to children who love football and those who are unsure, and to pupils who find PE hard. The aim is not to find the next professional. It is for every child to leave feeling they could do a bit more than they thought they could.

What parents and teachers can do this week

Parents

• Ask "what did you enjoy?" or "what did you try?" before "did you win?" or "how did you do?".
• Talk about your own mistakes and what you did next. Children copy how adults handle getting it wrong.
• Keep the car ride home short after matches. A calm "I enjoyed watching you" is often enough.
• Aim for the CMO guideline of an average of 60 minutes of activity a day, and count play, walking to school, cycling and dance, not just organised sport.
• If a child wants to quit after a bad week, talk it through first and, where you can, help them finish the block they signed up for. Finishing something hard is a confidence builder in itself.

Teachers

• Use short, repeated bursts of activity rather than one long session, in line with the EEF's finding on shorter sessions.
• Make sure every pupil has a role in PE, including children who find it hard. Rotate who leads warm-ups.
• Praise effort and resets out loud ("I liked how quickly you went again") so the class learns what you value.
• Link the language of PE to the classroom: "reset", "go again" and "have a go" work in maths as well.

When to look beyond confidence

Everyday confidence is different from anxiety or low mood that is affecting a child's sleep, appetite or attendance. If you are worried, speak to the school's pastoral or safeguarding lead, or to your GP. Coaching and workshops can support children but they do not replace professional help.

Confidence and football sessions for schools and parents in Norfolk and Suffolk

RYL Football Hub is a football coaching business based in Diss, Norfolk. We work with schools and families across Diss, south Norfolk, north Suffolk and north Essex, and we build confidence into everything we do.

For schools

• PE football sessions planned with your PE lead for Key Stage 1 and 2, with every child active.
• After-school football clubs led by an RYL coach, so your staff do not have to find the time.
• School team training for the team you enter into local leagues and festivals.
• Confidence workshops for a class or year group, using football examples to teach resilience, handling mistakes and encouraging others.

We offer a free 30-minute taster with one class, followed by a written quote. We share our session plans in advance and work alongside your staff and safeguarding procedures.

Find out more on our schools and PE partnerships page.

For parents

• 1-to-1 and small-group football coaching, with sessions designed to build skill and belief together.
• The Confidence Playbook, our guide for parents and young players on building confidence in football and beyond (£10.99, delivered as a digital PDF).
• Parent and carer evenings on raising confident children, available through schools and clubs — get in touch to find out more.

Book a free school taster Get The Confidence Playbook

Frequently asked questions

Does confidence really affect school results?

The honest answer is that it affects how willing a child is to try, ask and recover, which shapes how much they get out of school. Physical activity itself is linked with a small positive impact on attainment, about two months' additional progress a year according to the Education Endowment Foundation, and with wellbeing benefits.

How much activity should children do?

The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend an average of at least 60 minutes a day for 5 to 18 year olds, across the week, including play, active travel, sport and PE.

Do you need to be good at football to benefit?

No. Sessions are built around participation, small-sided games and encouragement, so children at every level get plenty of touches.

What if my child is shy or does not like sport?

Start small, with a role they are comfortable with, and praise effort. Our sessions let children build up gradually and never force anyone to perform in front of the group.

Can schools use PE and sport premium funding for this?

The rules are the school's to interpret, and the funding cannot be used to pay for coaches to cover PPA or teach the existing PE curriculum. Schools should check with their business manager or the DfE at PE.PREMIUM@education.gov.uk.