'˜We don't like cricket, we love it!'

Pupils from Meadowfield Primary School in Halton Moor are on a five-week pilot scheme at the Yorkshire Cricket Centre.

The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation has teamed up with wristband specialists Boost to measure physical activity by using wearable technology like pedometers. The aim is to increase physical activity levels in primary school children. Meadowfield headteacher Helen Stout said: “The project will involve participating in team games and cricket activities while wearing Boost fitness bands.

“These bands will calculate steps taken and energy burnt. A weekly summary will be texted to the children’s parents. This will act as a motivator for the children to improve their performance week after week.”

So far they have completed one session and feedback from the children has included ‘It got our hearts racing’.

Mrs Stout added: “This ties in with our recent work on community involvement and on keeping fit and healthy. Getting children to adopt healthy lifestyles is one of our core values as we’re now working with the first generation of children who have a lower life expectancy than their parents.

“We want children to establish healthy choices and routines with eating, exercise, mental wellbeing and sleep from an early age.”

Foundation manager Will Saville said: “We’re very interested to see how the children will react over the five-week period. It’s the first time the foundation has used wearable health technology, so we are keen to understand how this may influence health-related behaviours and how we may be able to roll this out over some of our other projects.”