Round Tower Integrated Primary School in Antrim is celebrating today after being crowned ‘Lidl Fit Factor Champions’.

As winners of the fun competition, which has been designed in conjunction with the Ulster Cancer Foundation to promote healthy eating and physical activity, the Antrim School has secured the top prize of £5,000 to be spent on sports equipment.

However, they will not be the only school in Northern Ireland to benefit from fantastic new sports equipment in the next school year.  Mullaglass Primary School in Newry snapped up 2nd place and £3,000; St Malachy’s Primary School in Armagh came in 3rd and scooped £2,000; while Knockavoe Resource Centre in Strabane came 4th winning £1,000 of sports equipment.  

Over 10,000 Key Stage 1 pupils took part in the Lidl Fit Factor this year, which was designed to help teachers promote the four key areas essential for healthy development: healthy eating, self expression, physical activity and creativity - thus increasing their chances of becoming healthy adults. 

The culmination of the four week challenge was a ‘creative project’ which asked pupils to creatively depict what the benefits of the Lidl Fit Factor were to their class.

It was a tough job choosing the Northern Ireland winner from the hundreds of entries says Lizzie Lumsden, Lidl Northern Ireland: “We were amazed at the effort and imagination that went into the great number of creative entries that we received.  It was a difficult decision to narrow down entries to one winner per county before selecting our overall champion. 

We finally made our decision based 50% on online voting at www.fitfactor.co.uk and 50% with the help of our superb panel of local celebrity judges which included Olympic Boxing medallist, Paddy Barnes; Ulster and Ireland Rugby star, Rory Best; 2008 All-Ireland Senior Football Champion, Sean Cavanagh and Belfast Telegraph’s sports editor, Steven Beacom.

Anne Devlin, Ulster Cancer Foundation, said: “Congratulations to Round Tower Integrated Primary School and all the other runners up in the Lidl Fit Factor Challenge.   Many lifelong habits are formed during a child’s early years therefore communicating positive healthy lifestyle messages such as a varied diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables and encouraging physical activity, will help children adopt a positive outlook to food and exercise.  These crucial life lessons will lead to a healthier lifestyle in adulthood and reduce their future risk of cancer by a third.”

Ciara Heffron, teacher of the winning class at Round Tower said: “The Fit Factor was a fun way of introducing the children in my class to the idea of healthy eating and the importance of physical activity.

“The children absolutely loved the Fit Factor challenge and still encourage me to keep up self-expression lessons and to play ‘Burnball’ with them. I thoroughly enjoyed this programme and look forward to taking part again in the next school year.”