England might not be doing very well at the World Cup at the moment, but our North and South Tyneside schools are pressing ahead on their journey to reach Johannesburg in time for the World Cup Final on July 11^th.

It’s the second week of the competition and some schools have been keeping up their strong start, while others have slipped back a little. The Be Air Aware team is keen to hear about your stories – if your school is doing something extra special for Walk to the World Cup, email us and we’ll get your photos and stories up on the website!

We haven’t got all the school data yet, but here’s our half time analysis.  

Premiership

Top of the Premiership league is Sea View Primary School in South Tyneside. They were halfway across the Mediterranean Sea last week – now they are in Chad! The youngsters on the south bank racked up more than 2,600kms. But they haven’t had it all their own way: Westoe Crown Primary School on North Tyneside is about 330km behind them in their race to South Africa. Another North Tyneside school has the third spot with 3,632 kilometres – Star of the Sea Primary School.  The game is really hotting up between these three schools!

It was Cleadon Primary who showed the biggest increase. Their weekly total rose from 818km in the first week to more than 1,300km this week! Well done Cleadon!

Championship

In the Championship the competition is equally tight at the top of the table. Here, North Tyneside school Greenfields Community Primary School has notched up an impressive 2702km. But not far behind and certainly with reach of overtaking them is the South Tyneside team from Marsden Primary. They are about 300km behind at 2,415kms, which means they recently passed Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.

 Just behind is St Joseph’s from North Tyneside, who have covered an impressive 1,413km, putting them right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

Marsden, who had a very strong first week, slipped in the second week. They posted more than 1,600km last week compared to 816km this week. 

Minnows

What can we say about St Mary’s Primary School on South Tyneside? They’ve come out of nowhere to take the top spot with a whopping 2,368km walked. That means they are approaching the coast of Africa soon. They’ve managed to build up a 450km lead over their North Tyneside rivals, Carville Primary School. But Walk to the World Cup is a marathon, not a sprint, so will they be able to keep up their explosive start?

Teams in the Minnows have been steadily plugging away and progress has been similar to last week – apart from the arrival of St Mary’s. Ridgeway lost a little bit of ground between week one and week two, as did Simonside who completed almost 100,000 fewer steps this week.

Meanwhile, Woodlawn SEN in North Tyneside who aren’t in a league but can still mount a serious challenge have got themselves across France and are now halfway across the Mediterranean Sea. Yhey have covered an impressive 1700kms on their journey so far!