And so it ends! One of the most ambitious, testing and competitive inter school Virtual Challenges yet undertaken in the UK has drawn to a close. In total, 26 primary schools walked, ran, wheelchaired and cycled 124,837km over the course of one week. To put that into perspective that is over 3x around the Earth. Irrespective of how far each school managed to travel, each and every participant was part of something incredible. As you relax after an intense week, take time to reflect on the enormity of what you have all achieved.
On an equalised basis, taking into account the number of pupils at the school, the winners, Shiplake Primary School, have been immense. They have produced the highest equalised daily distance on 4 of the 7 days and have led from the front from the very beginning. The school has been a pioneer in the concept of Expedition Societies for primary school families. Given many of the families are veterans of 24km hikes on Exmoor and 6 hour winter ascents of Pen Y Fan, the school’s ability to dig deep and revel in the challenge should come as no surprise.
What should also come as no surprise is the performance of Peppard Primary School who came a very strong 2nd. Given Peppard won the Land’s End to John O’Groats Challenge, the scores are now tied between these two pound for pound champions.
A special mention goes to Nettlebed who, as a first time entrant to a Children’s Challenge virtual event, came an amazing 3rd place. On no single day did Nettlebed ever finish lower than 5th place and it was their endurance that won them a spot on the podium.
From an absolute perspective, we had 17 primary schools that managed to complete the distance from London to Cairo but it should be reiterated that all schools contributed to the 124,837km collective distance. No single school contributed more than Crosfields School that travelled an incredible 14,023km. This is greater than the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole, from just one school, in just one week. Crosfields was not the biggest school that took part but virtually no one else got close, at any point, to the distance the school travelled every day. All, that is, except Holme Grange who on Day 7, travelled twice as far as any other school to ensure that in the overall absolute distance stakes they took 2nd spot. In fact, Holme Grange only narrowly missed out on coming third on an equalised basis, finishing just 126km behind Nettlebed.
To conclude, thank you very much to all schools, families and members of staff that took part in The Children’s Challenge London to Cairo Duathlon. It was an incredible event and all schools approached it with real enthusiasm and gusto. It was a tremendous undertaking and one that the children should remember for a very long time. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.”
Equalised Distance Travelled Per School (km)
The ‘Equalised Distance Travelled’ allows the progress made to be compared across schools of varying sizes. The distances achieved are normalised against a notional school of 100 pupils. A school with 50 pupils will have it’s distance doubled, a school with 100 pupils will see no change, and a school with 200 pupils will have it’s distance halved.
