It is part of Lidl's award-winning Sport for Good initiative, with each school also scoring £1,000 worth of new sports equipment.

A team of Northern Ireland’s best-known athletes have been selected and trained by the Youth Sport Trust, the UK charity improving young people’s education and development through sport and play, to run a series of workshops targeted at secondary school pupils, with a focus on boosting young people’s social skills, self-esteem and body confidence through sports participation.

Representing a strong cross-section of sport, athletes include four-time Paralympic athletics champion Michael McKillop MBE, Olympic steeplechase athlete, Kerry O’Flaherty, Olympic hockey heroes, Shirley McCay MBE and Eugene Magee, Northern Ireland netball international and Armagh ladies' Gaelic footballer, Caroline O’Hanlon, and female rugby union international and Olympian, Ashleigh Baxter.

Lidl Northern Ireland’s Sport for Good Schools Programme launched last year after research revealed that 45 per cent of young people in Northern Ireland said their mental health worsened since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Developed in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, the programme has supported more than 5,200 secondary school pupils across Northern Ireland to date. Survey feedback revealed that 83 per cent of participants felt Lidl Northern Ireland’s programme boosted their overall confidence and 100 per cent of teachers committed to changing their mental health support programmes as a result of the workshops.

This year, the programme aims to include a wider representation of lower ranking schools for Income Affecting Children’s Deprivation (IACD) in a bid to level the playing field for those most disadvantaged and to support schools to build back healthier, happier and more resilient students.

“Our charity has 27 years of expertise in designing and delivering programmes to support young people to realise their potential. Young people are growing up in a world where the cost-of-living crisis is having an increasing impact on their access to sport and physical activity and as a result more children are feeling lonely and disconnected. It is vital we support every young person to continue to access sport and physical activity to manage their wellbeing through initiatives like the Mental Health Athlete mentorship programme,” said Jenny Rouse, commercial and fundraising director at Youth Sport Trust.