Move it Boom, the physical activity competition for primary school children across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland from Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT), broke all records in 2021.

The latest edition of the competition, which has been running for six years, saw more primary schools involved and more physical activities logged than ever before.

Pupils from 152 primary schools took part in the competition which ran from Monday 4 October until Friday 17 December, with over 155,000 physical activities, ranging from ball games and dancing to playing at the park, yoga and running, being logged during this time.

With a variety of prizes on offer for the best performing schools from partners Leicester City in the Community, All Play Solutions, ME Sports in the Community, Leicester Riders, Loughborough Sport, Leicestershire County Cricket Club and Fox Soccer Academy, pupils were encouraged to get active and log their activities via the Move it Boom website to earn points for their school and new parts for their virtual robot avatars.

Latimer Primary School in Anstey finished top of the leader board and won Move it Boom 2021.

The school was presented with the winner’s shield and also won a ‘Leicester City Day’ of fun physical activities from Leicester City in the Community and up to £1000 to spend on thermoplastic playground markings from All Play Solutions.

On being announced as winners, Kamini Broome, Active Schools Sports Leader said, “It feels amazing to have won the Move it Boom competition, knowing that this was our first time entering the competition. All the children really enjoyed getting active and building their robots.

We started active clubs in school and encouraged children to walk or scooter to school rather than coming in the car to help them be more active. We can’t wait to do it all again.”

Pupils at the school embraced getting active, with one pupil saying: “I really enjoyed taking part because I got to play outside a lot! It’s been good fun to keep active. We are all so excited that we won Move it Boom 2021, hopefully we win it again next year.”

Leicester City in the Community helped launch Move it Boom 2021 and Glenn Short, Primary Stars Co-ordinator said, “Move it Boom 2021 was a fantastic initiative to be involved with, to host the launch at one of our partner primary schools showcased the importance of being active in such an effective way.

Children had lots of fun and felt empowered to exercise through incentives such as building robots online and earning points for their school. We’re very much looking forward to our continued involvement in this project in 2022.”

Sarah Tebbett, Quality Lead for School Nursing at LPT said, “We’re delighted by how many primary schools were in involved in Move it Boom 2021. The competition is a great way to encourage children to enjoy healthy lifestyles, be active and have fun at the same time.

A huge congratulations to all the primary schools and children who took part, with a special mention for the winning school, Latimer Primary, who really excelled throughout Move it Boom 2021.”

Move it Boom will return for 2022 in October and is open to all primary schools across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.