A round-the-world trip for Fife pupils and staff during lockdown

They took part in a challenge, organised by the PE department, which involved looking at ways of trying to get pupils active during lockdown. The initiative started on May 18 and saw pupils and staff from year groups across the school submitting the miles they either walked, ran or cycled.

Malcolm Stewart, PT Health and Well Being, told The Press they created a Kirkcaldy High School Club using the internet service activity tracker Strava which tracks human exercise and is mostly used for cycling and running using GPS data.

He said: “This challenge started on May 18 and involved pupils and staff submitting the miles they either walk, run or cycle.

“The PE department was looking at ways of getting pupils active during the lockdown period and after some discussion, we decided to give this a go. We created a Kirkcaldy High School Club on the app Strava where both pupils and staff submitted their miles. In no time the miles stated to rack up.

“In less than two months we visited 23 different countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Eqypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and India with the challenge finishing on the summit of Mount Everest on July 16.

“Other departments in the school joined the challenge too, for example the Geography department posted postcards on Twitter of famous landmarks we passed such as the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum and the Pyramids of Giza.

“Lisa Malcolm from the PE department created a staff music playlist on Spotify to help motivate the staff and pupils on their runs and cycles and the Home Economics department also posted recipes from the various countries we visited. I added up the miles daily and plotted the progress on a huge world map.”

He added: “This was a brilliant challenge that both staff and pupils really bought into and I’m sure in encouraged many to stay active during the tough lockdown period. Many positive comments on Strava were passed between pupils and staff to encourage each other which was really nice and appreciated by all.”

One Kirkcaldy family took part every day in the challenge - Cathy and Neil Husband with their children Callum who is going into fourth year and Jessica and Erin who are going into first year.

Neil said: “We were keeping up to date with what was going on at the school through Twitter and we saw the tweets from the PE Department about the challenge. We got involved by walking our dog, going out for cycles either as a family or in smaller groups and we also went out for runs.

“Having the different countries and reaching the various landmarks made it a bit more interesting as well as being good fun.”

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