By Gareth A Davies – Telegraph.co.uk 01 Dec 2008

Research by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation has re-enforced findings by the Norwich Union Girls Active programme that refurbished changing-rooms with hairdryers, full-length mirrors and cubicles could create a revolution in encouraging schoolgirls to take sport and PE seriously.

The WSFF research found that 40 per cent of girls feel self-conscious about their bodies in PE lessons – hence the drive in recent years to allow them to wear tracksuits and choose their own PE kits – with only one in four girls believing it to be ‘cool’ to play sports as part of their recreational lives.

More than half of those surveyed would take part in sport if they could style their hair afterwards. Fifty six per cent of girls aged 10 to 15 said that hairdryers were essential, and 91 per cent cited private cubicles as a must-have.

Dame Kelly Holmes, a member of the Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport, said: “We have been listening to girls from schools around the country, and this is a message we have heard time and again.”

Also of concern is that almost a quarter of girls said that PE classes at school had put them off sport for life. As a result, there is to be a broadening of sports on the curriculum, to include activities such as dance, aerobics, and ‘boxercise’, a form of non-contact boxing training.

The publication of the latest female attitudes to sport will lead to a national campaign next year, backed by government ministers, to drive an anti-obesity campaign among schoolgirls and women.

Harry Goodhew, aged 11, entered Guinness World Records last weekend as the youngest ever qualified rugby referee in charge of a match.

The Dulwich College pupil and member of the Old Alleynian rugby club, took the Entry Level Referee Award Level One and Two course in September, with a group of adults.

Goodhew’s first significant outing as a qualified referee on Sunday was at Dulwich College, where he took charge of a Kent v Herts girls’ under-12 match. By all accounts, Goodhew was exemplary in keeping order.