Good luck Faye, Cora and Tara!
Good luck Faye, Cora and Tara!
January 08, 2019
As thousands of students blow the cobwebs off their schoolbooks and return to school this week, it is crunch time for students involved in the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. Judging for the competition takes place tomorrow with the exhibition open to the public thereafter.
Last November, we were approached to assist with the promotion of a project being completed by three girls from Lucan Community CollegeDublin - Faye Murphy, Tara Phelan and Cora O'Toole. The girls also attended the launch of our PPS Schools competition where they got to meet Dublin All Star Sinéad Goldrick and it was there that I got the opportunity to find out a little bit more about their project.
Faye, Tara and Cora have been researching the most effective ways of keeping girls playing sport throughout their teenage years. All three girls play sport themselves and have seen their peers stop playing for a variety of different reasons. As dual players, the girls stressed the difficulty players are sometimes presented with where they have to choose sports and that this can be reasons for players dropping out of sports and indeed sport altogether. While their focus is on ladies gaelic football, they also play other sports too and state that balancing multiple sports can be difficult.
While some of the reasons the girls suggested for dropping out also included academic and social reasons, they hastened to add this is why their project was so important. They suggested that boys manage to balance all and continue to play sport and that stereotyping also had a role to play.
The girls readily admit that the situation has improved over the last number of years, in Dublin they have no shortage of female role models to look up to. Members of Lucan Sarsfields Gaa Club, the girls said they really enjoyed playing football and they made the point that you don't really miss playing the game, until you stop.
The girls urged caution though, that already there is so much pressure on young girls, that playing football shouldn't just be about winning, that it should be about enjoying the sport and enjoying playing with their teammates, teammates that are more like friends for life.
Faye, Cora and Tara also hugely admired the 20x20.ie campaign, especially their slogan "If She Can't See It, She Can't Be It" but stressed that people had to get behind the campaign if it were to be a success.
On behalf of Leinster LGFA, we would like to wish the girls the very best of luck this week and we look forward to hearing the results of their research!