Pupils received gongs for health promotion

St Colmcille's Primary School, Claudy, and St Columba's Primary School, Newbuildings, both received gold awards.

St Canice's Primary School, Feeny, and St. Mary's Primary School, Altinure, both received silver awards.

And Ballykelly Primary School received bronze awards.

A total of seventy-nine schools secured awards for the health promotion activities of their pupils.

Action Cancer's Health Promotion Manager Emily Magrath commented: "The standard of entries this year was extremely high, with some excellent health promotion work being done in schools across the country.

"The Health Action awards were established to encourage schools to do as much as they can to improve the health of young people and the winning schools have shown a real commitment to that goal.

"The Gold, Silver and Bronze award system allows schools to compare their performance with other schools and to make improvements year on year."

She added: "With Centra's help Action Cancer's Health Action programme continues to make a positive impact, delivering healthy lifestyle messages to more than 300,000 schoolchildren since 2003."

Centra Brand Manager, Nicky Kelly commented: "Centra retailers across Northern Ireland have backed Health Action for over seven years, by promoting the programme locally and fundraising with customers for its running costs.

"We are proud to support the Health Action Awards as we can see real health benefits for young people now and in the future."

The winners impressed Action Cancer experts with their proactive approach to the promotion of healthy eating, extra-curricular exercise, sun safety awareness and the dangers of smoking and alcohol.

Province-wide there are fourteen Gold award winners, thirty-five silver award winners and thirty bronze awards have been granted.

All seventy-nine schools receive a Health Action trophy or certificate and a prize of 200, to be spent on school equipment, will be awarded to the highest scoring pre-school/primary school and secondary school/college in each of the five Education and Library Boards.

For information on the Health Action Awards, or to get your school involved in the Health Action programme contact Lucy Latewood at Action Cancer on 028 9080 3344. A full list of Health Action Award winners is available at www.actioncancer.org