Over 3,000 young people come together “virtually” to compete in our first School Games Virtual Summer Championships!

Posted: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 09:30

We may be still physically distanced from each other but that didn't stop school children from across the county coming together, virtually, to take part in our first School Games Virtual Summer Championships. With over 3,000 young people putting forward their best score in a range of challenges, we had over 15,000 entries into the 4 sports categories.

Our week-long championships started on Monday 22nd June (the start of National School Sport Week) and ran throughout the week with young people able to take part in our challenges and upload their scores to represent their school.

Our virtual event gave even more young people the opportunity to participate and represent their school in this interactive county-wide competition, as the challenges were open to all and accessible whether they were taking part individually at home, or were now back in a school environment. 123 schools were represented in the competition.

This first ever Leicester-Shire and Rutland School Games Virtual Summer Championships was supported by a range of professional sports teams and sports personalities from across our county and beyond. Leicester City star and England international James Maddison pledged his support for the event along with a host of talented sports stars and Team GB Olympians & Paralympians, including those that should have been heading out to Tokyo themselves this summer. They recorded messages of support and took part in the challenges to motivate and challenge the young people taking part in the event.

These videos were used to not only explain the challenges but give young people a chance to engage with and try to beat the professional.

Vicki Brown from County Champion, Ab Kettleby Primary School said, "The children really enjoyed taking part in the different challenges and representing Team Melton & Belvoir. It was nice also to see the children from our school featuring on East Midlands Today."

Caren Godsell from Orchard Primary School also commented, "We have had great fun doing this and have posted some of the pictures on Twitter. Thanks for giving the children an opportunity to enjoy the lovely weather we are having at the moment!"

LRS Sports Development Officer, Liam Drake who runs the County-wide school sport offer has said, "Our School Games Virtual Summer Championships was a huge success that exceeded the aims and expectations that we had in terms of the engagement of young people across the county. We would like to put on record our huge thanks to everyone involved - schools, pupils, staff and parents; SSPAN staff and all of the sportspeople, GO GOLD athletes and famous faces that took the time to record good luck massages and film themselves taking some of the HiFIVE challenges.

As well as being a fantastic event, the Virtual Summer Championships has confirmed to us that there is an appetite for virtual school sport events and competitions, not only in the short term whilst we go through the current situation, but also beyond that which will hopefully allow us to make these events more sustainable and engage with even more young people, particularly those who don't necessarily get or take the opportunity to represent their school in "traditional" school sports competitions."

Results:

Overall County Champions (PRIMARY)

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Ab Kettleby Primary	Melton	1096
2^nd	Stathern Primary	Melton	900
3^rd	Husbands Bosworth Primary	Blaby & Harborough	865

Overall County Champions (SECONDARY)

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Rushey Mead	East Leicester	619
2^nd	Loughborough High	North Charnwood	531
3^rd	Robert Smyth Academy	Blaby & Harborough	454

Overall SSPAN Champions

Position	SSSPAN	Points
1^st	West Leicester	589
2^nd	North West Leics	571
3^rd	Rutland	546

Sports Category Top 3

Ball Sports

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Ab Kettleby Primary	Melton	108
2^nd	Stathern Primary	Melton	89
3^rd	Bringhurst Primary	Rutland	69

Summer Sports

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Ellistown Primary	NWL	94
2^nd	Husbands Bosworth Primary	Blaby & Harborough	89
3^rd	St Thomas More Primary	East Leicester	83

Athletics

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Burbage Primary	Hinckley & Bosworth	81
2^nd	Ab Kettleby Primary	Melton	71
3^rd	Brooke Hill Primary	Rutland	60

Inclusive Sports

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Parks Primary	West Leicester	169
2^nd	Ellistown Primary	NWL	146
3^rd	Stathern Primary	Melton	124

SPIRIT of the Games County Champions - PRIMARY

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Newcroft Primary Academy	North Charnwood	161
2^nd	Parks Primary	West Leicester	146
3^rd	Orchard Comm. Primary	North Charnwood	118

SPIRIT of the Games County Champions - SECONDARY

Position	School Name	SSPAN	Points
1^st	Charnwood College	North Charnwood	73
2^nd	The Market Bosworth School	Hinckley & Bosworth	35
3^rd	Rushey Mead Academy	West Leicester	26