Some Interview Results

The following are some of the results from the 5-year interview.

About the children

• The average age of the child at the 5-year visit was 4 years and 8 months.
• 96% of the children had started school by the time they were visited by our interviewer.
• 27% of the children had one or more accidents during the period from the 3-year interview to the 5-year interview. Of these, 9% did not go to hospital, 83% went to Casualty, and 8% were admitted to hospital.

Child care

In a typical week in term-time, 12% of the children attended an after-school club.

During a typical week, 74% of the children were looked after by someone other than their resident parent(s). In order of most widely used, these included:

• Grandparents (1140 children)
• Other relative, e.g. Auntie (345 children)
• Childminders (176 children)
• Non-resident parent (158 children)
• Friends and neighbours (154 children)
• Other carer (85 children)
• Nurseries (80 children)
• Nannies or au pairs (20 children)

Experiences and Activities

We asked about various types of trips, outings and experiences that the children have had.

• 5937 children had been to the zoo, acquarium, wildlife reserve or a farm.
• 5503 children had been to a theme park or funfair.
• 3992 children had been to a play, pantomime, concert, circus or other live show.
• 3964 children had been to the cinema.
• 3352 children had been to art gallery, museum or historical site.
• 1075 children had been to a professional sporting event.

We were interested in on average how many days a week each child goes to a club or class to do sport or any other physical activity (like swimming, gymnastics, football, dancing, etc.). The responses showed that most children went to a club or class less than once a week or not at all (66%). Fewer than a quarter of the children (20%) attended a class or club once a week. There were some children who did a class on two days per week (9%) or three days per week (4%). Only a very small number went to a club or class four (1%) or five (.5%) days a week.

We also asked how often parents did physical activities with their child (apart from walking to school). The largest number of parents shared physical activities with their children once or twice a week.

• Every day or almost every day (13%)
• Several times a week (15%)
• Once or twice a week (39%)
• At least once a month (17%)
• Every few months (6%)
• At least once a year (1%)
• Less often or never (9%)