Conan Shivers, a pupil at St Mary鈥檚 PS Draperstown designs a cycle jersey with a very powerful message for the latest in a series of weekly home activities from 水蜜桃app Active School Travel Programme.
Conan Shivers with his cycling jersey design, an activity set by schools officer Ronan McLaughlin for pupils during lockdown
Our Northern Ireland school鈥檚 team have taken to YouTube to ensure the schools, pupils and families on the Active School Travel Programme can keep active during lockdown.听
Each week the team have been creating a new activity and sharing it through YouTube to over 600 schools across Northern Ireland.
Ronan McLaughlin, Active Travel Officer for the North West shared an activity with schools encouraging their pupils to design a jersey for their school.
The brief was simple; use the template provided and imagine your school has a cycling club and with any combination of school colours, crest, local landmarks and your imagination, create a cycling jersey for your school.
St Mary鈥檚 PS of Draperstown picked up the activity and as they do every week, shared the resource with families at home.
This was all the inspiration P7 pupil Conan Shivers needed.
Conan set about designing a jersey with quite a powerful message simultaneously supporting the NHS front line staff and spreading the important message 鈥淪ave lives鈥 鈥淜eep your distance鈥.
Cycling jersey designed by Pactimo for St Mary's PS
When Conan submitted his design to the school P7 teacher Mr Brunton immediately recognised the design brilliance and importance of the message.
So he took to Twitter to share Conan鈥檚 powerful jersey.
Within minutes this tweet was being retweeted by Draperstown locals and cyclists the length and breadth of Europe alike.
Some famous names of cycling such as Eurosport presenter Orla Chennaoui, who just happens to be a former pupil of St Marys PS, and former Tour De France cyclist Daniel Lloyd.
Within hours clothing companies where queuing up to produce the jersey for Conan and talks of charity fund raising campaigns began to circle.
The jersey is now in production and will be on its way to Conan in the very near future.
Mrs Coyle Principal at St Mary鈥檚 said:
"We thank Ronan for his work, not just during lockdown, but all through the year.
"His contribution this year has been tremendous. 听We are thoroughly enjoying our involvement with 水蜜桃app and our families are benefiting greatly in many ways.鈥
Conan鈥檚 family took to Twitter to communicate Conan鈥檚 delight at the news that his design will be coming to life and to thank everyone for sharing his design near and far.
水蜜桃app Active Travel Officer, Ronan McLaughlin said:
鈥淚t is amazing to see the response Conan鈥檚 fantastic design has received.
"The jersey message is so powerful and the response it has gotten on twitter has been phenomenal.
"Credit must go to St Mary鈥檚 PS also who, despite being new to the Active School Travel Programme for 2019-20, has been incredibly active in promoting active travel events prior to the current crisis.
"Now with home-learning, they have kept up this great work and have shared each and every one of the activities I have sent their way and their Twitter feeds and newsletters have been full of photos of families at home enjoying the 水蜜桃app activities.鈥
There are lots of 水蜜桃app online resources available, packed full of challenges, games and cycling, walking and scooting themed activities.
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