On Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th May, members from the Marketing and Product teams at Banner attended the Beacon Academy in East Sussex to present sports bra workshops to female students.
The workshops took place during students’ PE lessons and had the aim of bringing awareness to the importance of wearing sports bras during physical activity. This involved educative material around breast health and breast awareness.
The core inspiration behind the APTUS Sports Bra is to encourage and support girls in school sports. From in-depth research into breast health, it’s evident that sports bras should be an essential part of a girl’s PE kit. In response, we created the first sustainable, fully reversible sports bra designed exclusively for female students. And it’s all in the name of giving girls the support and confidence to enjoy sports at school.
We chose to work with Beacon Academy because they share our passion for supporting students and we know that this includes encouraging confidence in all areas of education. We’re excited to have shared our knowledge about the importance of wearing a sports bra and what the right support can do for building confidence in girls.
Beacon Academy is the first school to take part in the workshops and will be rolling the information out to the whole school through PE lessons. Students are now able to purchase the sports bra through their schoolwear provider as an optional addition to the school’s PE kit list.
Teacher of PE, Miss Dannii Hilder, was inspired to initiate the partnership when she recognised the need to address some of the taboos around talking about breast health and the barriers girls can face when taking part in sports.
“It is a known fact that at secondary school age, girls’ participation in physical activity is not as high as it is for boys. Research conducted by Sport England for “This Girl Can” has identified that barriers include feeling self-conscious about becoming sweaty or worrying about wearing tight clothing and the movement of their body, to name a few. In their findings, they discovered that only 36% of 11-18-year-olds wear a sports bra for PE and many are unaware of the consequences of not wearing one.
Creating a safe space to talk about breast health, sports bras and sports participation is vital to ensure that girls feel comfortable and confident when participating in physical activity. This project with Banner has been ten months in the making and I could not be more thrilled that our students have the opportunity to attend the workshops and purchase the APTUS Sports Bra through the school’s uniform supplier. Women and girls should be proud, confident and happy to participate in physical activity and if we can help to break down some of those barriers then I am confident we are setting them up for future success.” – Miss Dannii Hilder, Teacher of PE at Beacon Academy
“The impact this will have on the girls will be amazing. It is extremely important to break down the barriers which hold girls back from taking part in sport – this initiative couldn’t have been possible without the vision and planning from Miss Hilder, who has worked with Banner to make her vision a reality.” – Mrs Karen Carney, Head of PE at Beacon Academy
