Sports day. The highlight of the school calendar. A nation’s children coming together just once a year to hop, skip and jump against their friends.

But as the UK went into lockdown, every school in the UK locked its doors.

Class dismissed. Exams axed. And sports day cancelled.

Children not only faced a sport-free summer. They also faced falling behind in their studies.

Through its Skills for Tomorrow programme, BT had already committed to teaching 5 million kids digital skills for free, by 2025. But families needed help now.

Our brief was simple. Inspire kids today, to help them thrive in a digital tomorrow – all during the toughest year of their young lives.

Benjamin Disraeli once said, “There is no education like adversity.”

We were about to prove him right.

BT uncancelled sports day.

Digital Dash was the perfect fusion of entertainment and education. A revolutionary gaming app that rewarded mental aptitude with improved gaming performance.

As kids trained their avatar, they’d learn the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. They may have been herding sheep in their avatar’s sleep but they were actually learning how algorithms work. The better their mental performance, the better their avatar performed on our virtual track.

Thousands raced toward our live YouTube final – hosted by Reggie Yates and double Olympic gold medallist, Dame Kelly Holmes – bringing the best players across the nation together for a sports day like no other.

The eventual winners were crowned the champions of Digital Dash and received £30,000 worth of tech equipment for their schools.

But every child took home skills that would set them up for life.

Save the day. Save tomorrow.

Kids were missing sports day. But more importantly, they were missing out on their education. By harnessing technology and creativity we rescued both.

Collaborating with parents, teachers and education experts, we combined inspirational home-learning with incredible online gaming. Creating a track and field themed game that allowed kids to train their brain as they trained their character for our virtual sports day.

At its heart, Digital Dash embodied three core principles:

Be inclusive: 4% children’s books published in 2018 had a BAME character. 3% for computer games released since 2003. Our game was 100% representative. And free.

Be informative: we adhered to strict educational standards by involving and empowering teachers and education experts throughout

Be inspirational: ¾ of parents blamed a lack of motivation for their kid’s home-schooling struggles. So, we incentivised learning with improved gaming performance. Plus, £30,000 of tech equipment for the winners.

The best educational games are a perfect storm of superb design and quality learning.

So, we united designers, parents, teachers and education experts to build, test and launch Digital Dash in seven weeks. Mirroring big-race preparation, our game had three stages:

CREATE: our dynamic customisation engine allowed children to create their avatar using thousands of characteristics. From skin colour and hairstyles. To items of cultural dress, like Hijabs.

TRAIN: our ten mini games taught the fundamental concepts of computational thinking. Like using logical reasoning to spot their avatar’s missing shoe. Or learning algorithms by herding sheep in their avatar’s sleep.

RACE: thousands raced. Just six made it to our YouTube final. Streamed through our app and on YouTube in real-time. Hosted by ambassadors Reggie Yates and Dame Kelly Holmes.

Our campaign targeted parents through our army of social influencers and ambassadors delivering phenomenal reach and relevance. Amplified through PR,

Digital Dash upskilled the nation with new digital skills during a?global pandemic. For free.

It was played by more than 156,000 pupils and reached more than 30 million people across the UK.

Parents, children and their schools got their sports day back, and participants learnt digital skills that went far beyond that.

While it was live, Digital Dash was more popular than the BBC Bitesize app and downloaded more times than games like Star Wars, Worms Armageddon and Tomb Raider.

But the results that meant the most came from the parents and the schools themselves.

@justjnette we’ve learnt so much from the Digital Dash app from @BT_UK

@beforeandagain There’ll be no sports day. Or will there? Because @BT_UK have you covered

@RidegwayPrimarySchool A great way to teach your children

@ParkViewCommunitySchool Laying the foundations for advanced techniques like coding