Lioness legend Millie Bright teaches teens football in new TikTok initiative

Lioness legend Millie Bright, OBE has become one of the biggest faces of TikTok's free #SummerSkills programme, which plans to teach teens everything from sport to literature to wellbeing without leaving the app.

There’s no need to be too surprised. While TikTok has a reputation for brainrot, it’s actually fast-becoming one of the UK’s biggest learning tools. According to TikTok research, 88% of British teens surveyed (aged 16-19) are turning to the app for educational content. They also found that 44% use TikTok to discover new interests and 40% say they’re using TikTok to find how-to tutorials.

This also comes at a time when trends such as #Booktok and #songwriting are on the rise. In fact, there are currently over 60.9 million hashtags under ‘booktok’, while ‘songwriting’ boasts over 572 thousand – proving that the app is becoming something of a creative hub.

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Plus, many parents don’t know how to keep their kids occupied over the long summer months. TikTok’s same research found that 87% of British parents feel stressed planning their teen’s holidays and almost half say they don’t know how to.

So, to help fill the gap, TikTok’s summer skills programme is running for the five weeks of UK summer holidays. It kicked off on July 23 with Sports Week, which features sports lessons from Chelsea FC Women's captain and England international Millie Bright, who is taking teens through the “Do’s and Don’ts of defending 1v1”, as well as football self-care recovery.

Millie Bright said: “I'm delighted to have joined the TikTok #SummerSkills programme to inspire teens to learn new football skills over the Summer holidays. Anybody can learn a new skill as long as they are curious, so grab your friends and family, and challenge them to try something different – you might just surprise yourself.”

Other weeks include STEM Week, which will be partially taught by a particle physicist at CERN, Literature Week, which will be hosted by poet Chloe Carter, Music Week and Well-being Week. Teens can simply access the content by typing in #SummerSkills or #LearnOnTikTok on TikTok, or hopping on a TikTok LIVE. They can also follow the account @TikTok_UK to discover new skills each week.

TikTok has also said it is committed to encouraging healthy digital habits during the programme. This includes measures like all under-18 user accounts having a 60-minute time limit and the introduction of new tools like the in-app meditation feature, which encourages users to wind down after 10 pm.

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Dominic Burns, TikTok's Head of Operations, UK, Ireland and Nordics, said: "We know that TikTok is a place where teens come to discover and learn, particularly through our dedicated STEM feed and communities like #BookTok and #LearnonTikTok.

“We're thrilled to bring the TikTok #SummerSkills programme to parents and teens to help them learn new skills together during the holidays, from football tricks to songwriting, poetry to science experiments, TikTok creators will bring these skills to life each week throughout the summer.”

He added that the initiative will complement TikTok’s ongoing work to provide parents with tools and resources through the ‘Family Pairing’ feature “to ensure teens have a positive experience on our platform." The Family Pairing feature came into effect in 2020 and is a tool that allows parents and guardians to link their TikTok account to their child's account – giving them access to control and privacy settings.