Episode 3 — Empowered Women, Empowered Girls: Designing PE That Works for Every Girl
The third and final episode of the series turns its focus entirely to schools and physical education — and begins with a moment of real, uncomfortable honesty. The same reports have been published for years. Girls are dropping out at the same rates. The statistics barely shift. Something has to change — not in what we know, but in what we are willing to do.
Dr Emma Ross and Baz Moffat explore what girls-first design in PE actually looks like, from the earliest years through to the persistent dropout of the secondary school years. The roots of that dropout, they argue, are laid long before a girl reaches secondary school — in the shoes she is expected to wear, in who dominates the playground, in the subtle daily message that rough-and-tumble play is for boys and stillness is for girls. John Parsons shares striking physical literacy data confirming that on every single measure — meaning, value, enjoyment, movement, connection, positive experiences — girls score consistently lower than boys, with the gap widening as they get older.
The episode's most powerful and resonant argument, however, is about teachers. Baz Moffat makes a compelling case that you cannot be an authentic advocate for girls' health if your own health has never been supported. A teacher who has spent a career being told to endure period pain in silence cannot authentically tell a girl her period is a vital sign of her wellbeing. A teacher with a complicated, unsupported relationship with food cannot credibly model healthy fuelling for the girls in her care. Empowered women empower girls — and right now, too many of the women at the heart of PE and school sport are not being empowered themselves.
Ronnie Heath shares real PE's emerging vision to invest directly in the health and wellbeing of the women teachers at the core of the real PE community — and The Well HQ's response is immediate: we are all in. It is the perfect note on which to end a series that has moved, throughout, from the scale of the problem to the urgency of the solution — and landed, finally, on the quiet conviction that change is not only possible, but already underway.
About The Well HQ
Founded in 2021 by Baz Moffat, Dr Bella Smith, and Dr Emma Ross, The Well HQ is a women’s health and wellness consultancy rooted in scientific evidence, real-life experience, and decades of expertise. The Well HQ turns science into practical action through bespoke educational resources, training programmes and strategic plans that help organisations create lasting, impactful change.
Learn more at thewell-hq.com.
Baz Moffat - Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Baz Moffat is the CEO and co-founder of The Well HQ, a consultancy dedicated to changing the system around women and girls in sport, fitness and wellness. Drawing from her experience as a former Team GB rower and coach, she saw firsthand how a lack of female-specific training and support limits women’s potential. With over 20 years of experience in health, fitness, and high-performance environments, Baz is a prominent voice in the women’s health movement and advocates for closing the gender gap and creating meaningful change for women in sport and beyond.
Dr Emma Ross - Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer
Dr Emma Ross is the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of The Well HQ, a consultancy dedicated to changing the system around women and girls in sport, fitness and wellness. With a career as a scientist, researcher, and practitioner, Emma was involved in the development of several breakthrough initiatives around women’s physiology and psychology in sports. She was the Head of Physiology of the English Institute of Sport for ten years, and led the sports scientists supporting Olympic and Paralympic athletes in Rio 2016.
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