Christmas Cheer

School pupils in Tameside have thrown themselves into the Christmas spirit by taking part in the Santa Dash - a national event to encourage fitness, health and well-being.

After one of the toughest years on record, the event was welcomed by pupils and teachers alike, who all donned festive attire to celebrate the occasion.

Mike Ellis, a teacher at Greenside Primary School, Droylsden, said his school had been raising funds for the PTA, while St John Fisher RC Primary School, Denton, collected money for the Believe and Achieve Trust.

Mike spoke about the initiative and feels it was a great incentive to get youngsters fit and active during a difficult period.

He said: “It’s a national event going on this week and I know the Tameside School Sports Partnership was keen on us and all the schools in Tameside to get involved, so we thought we’d do it.

“All the children are involved. They dressed up, and they’ve got their Santa hats. We’ve set up a donation as well for our parent teacher association to get some money back into the school.

“It’s gone really well so far. We’ve had music on the playground and the school sports council has designed posters for it - it’s lovely to see everyone active again.

“It’s good to get the whole school active, get everyone involved together and just have some fun.

“It’s good to do these things around Christmas too.

“It’s frustrating with everything going on this year and we do feel sorry for the children as they’re not experiencing as much as they should have done. We’ve tried to make up for that by doing the Tameside mile and we took part in a virtual dodgeball competition with eight schools involved.

“We ran a pilot scheme to create an active chalk pavement, with things such as running and jumping. It’s out on the playground and it’s great to see our parents and children taking part as they enter school.

“That’s something we hope to see across the borough really - just getting people active and moving.”

We also spoke to St John Fisher’s Ryan Bardsley who echoed the same thoughts, but emphasised the importance of his chosen charity - the Believe and Achieve Trust.

“We signed up with the school sports partnership to take part in the Santa dash. It’s a national event so all the schools in the country are invited to take part,” said Ryan.

“We wanted to take part this year because of the lockdown, as children can’t go to competitions anymore. It’s been much shorter this year in terms of sport, so any chance to be active we’re jumping at it.

“I was fortunate enough to know Alex before he sadly passed away and, with everything this year, charities have lost out due to no fundraising events. Believe and Achieve is a great charity, obviously supporting sport as well so we wanted to raise money for them to help them along.

“We’re a very sporty school, we’re a platinum games school, we’ve got the accreditation from the association of PE so we try and get into every sports competition we can. It’s really frustrating, but we’re trying our best. We’ve bought equipment so the children can keep active and we also do home activities. We took part in the Tameside mile and the keepy-uppy challenge too.”