Blackpool's Waterloo Primary Academy launches sports event involving 20 countries

Robbie Jordan, head of PE at Waterloo Primary Academy, originally envisaged a friendly challenge against just one school in America, as a way of forging new Transatlatic links for the school.

However, when he tested out the idea on the American Teachers’ Facebook page, he was staggered by the response.

So many schools wanted to get involved that Robbie decided to go global with the idea and approach educators from lots of other nations.

Now a total of 75 schools from 20 countries such as Thailand, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Belgium, Germany and the USA are onboard Waterloo’s International Primary PE Competition.

So how does it work?

Robbie, who is also a Year 5 teacher at the school on Waterloo Road, said: “It has really blown up massively and we didn’t expect it.

"All the schools choose ten pupils and arrange the contests via our dedicated website and every two weeks, all the schools take on the same new challenge, which will be various kinds of sport.

"Each of the ten will take on the challenge, we work out the average score and the team with the highest scores tally gets more points for the league table.

"It’s one big league table so any team that’s near the top after a few challenges will be really riding high.

"We’ve even got a nice trophy being made and the winner will be sent it by mail at the end of July!”

Aside from the international schools involved, there are a handful of Fylde coast teams involved as well – St Nicholas Primary from Squires Gate, Ribby with Wrea CE Primary School an St Peters in Lytham.

The competition got under way this week (Wednesday February 8) when Waterloo’s team took part in an agility challenge, involving running in and out of cones.

More testing challenges will follow for the teams, who are all aged between nine and 11.

Robbie says the competition is about trust and he doesn’t expect any of the teams to inflate their actual scores!

He added: “It’s fun for everyone involved a great way to foster international relations.”