Culminating on 13 June, the popular initiative saw children log over one million activities helping them keep fit during lockdown.

Top honours went to Primary 2 pupil Darragh Compton from St Comgall’s PS in Bangor. Darragh recorded a 20-day streak, practising activities such as high jump, welly boot toss and a strong man challenge ahead of the actual sports day and was entered into a special prize draw winning a trip to W5 for his class.

Paul Carvill (back right) hosted a socially distanced but great fun Healthy Kidz Sports Day in his Lurgan neighbourhood to mark the culmination of the 6 week virtual programme of traditional school Sports Day challenges. Over 21,000 children from 871 primary schools across NI registered for the initiative with pupils logging over 1 million activities onto the Healthy Kidz website. The initiative was supported by Healthy Kidz partner, the Henderson Group. Joining the Healthy Kidz director of coaching was Lord Mayor of Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon, Cllr Kevin Savage with Laura McKee (back left) from Henderson Group and Sports day participants (front l-r) Pennie, Ava and Emily.

Congratulating everyone who took part Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing at Henderson Group said, “We’re thrilled to work alongside Healthy Kidz and help keep up the tradition of school sports days this year via a virtual platform.”

“The programme proved a big hit with pupils, parents and teachers and reached over 30,000 people, with the Saturday sports day achieving over 34,000 views, shares, likes and comments. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching videos shared by parents each week from kids across Northern Ireland.”

“Darragh was one of over 300 pupils who logged activities for 20 consecutive days and qualified for our £20 voucher prize and ultimately went forward to the grand draw. Well done to Darragh and St Comgall’s Primary School.”

St Comgall’s PE co-ordinator, Sean Ennis, said, “The Healthy Kidz programme gave us as a school an opportunity to ensure pupils stayed active during lockdown and were engaging in physical activity.

‘Sports Day is an exciting event and it was great for pupils to take part in fun activities such as the egg & spoon and long jump with their families too.’

Thanking participants and Henderson Group, Paul Carvill, Director of Coaching at Healthy Kidz said, “Everyone who took part had brilliant fun experiencing eight different sports day activities as well an obstacle course challenge. Holding a virtual sports day encouraged even more creativity, but still retained the usual friendly but competitive spirit of children!

“We’re very grateful to SPAR, EUROSPAR, ViVO and ViVOXTRA for their continued support of Sports Days helping improve the physical health of schoolchildren in Northern Ireland.”