Stirring up excitement and passion for the Games
Why Get Set?
St Mary’s CE Primary School (Kent, South East England) felt it crucial that their children were to be as involved and enthusiastic as possible about the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Already working with the support of their local Sports College, the North School, St Mary’s had taken the Values and were starting to embed these into lessons, assemblies and a new whole school reward system – the PRIDE awards. St Mary’s wanted to further their involvement through joining Get Set, being able to share and receive more ideas from other schools across the country.
“Being able to put the Get Set network plaque up in our school would add to the London 2012 buzz.”
The Journey So Far
Around the school, children have worked on a range of activities with an Olympic and Paralympic focus:
- Designing their own opening ceremony for London 2012 in the form of a storyboard
- Using Olympic and Paralympic logos as stimulus for debate in philosophy lessons
- Putting together a great display board for the PRIDE awards.
What do we all our hope and dream for in 2012? All children at St Mary’s had the chance to think about this and write down their thoughts. Everyone’s goals were put together and buried in a time capsule to be dug up in the big year to see whether these will have been met.
Olympic gold medal winner Jamie Staff visited to help celebrate Sport Relief. Children took part in a ‘Bike-It Breakfast’ and had the chance to hear Jamie talk and ask him questions. A further visitor was athlete Graham Hedman who inspired children to perform well on their annual sports day by judging, training and giving tips for good running techniques.
Positive Values
St Mary’s feels their children are already much more excited about the Olympic and Paralympic Games and that there is a definite ‘buzz’ about the school.
To build on this the school is keen to use the London 2012 logo on letters and the school website as a constant reminder for the children of what lies ahead, and as means of promoting this to parents.
And the highlights for students?
The opportunity to meet Jamie Staff was particularly inspiring for children. They loved the idea that his job is his hobby and were thoroughly fascinated by how much he had travelled. Children asked some amazing questions about where he had been and what the different countries were like. The children also thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Olympic site, which had a huge impact on them. They also ran a poster competition, creating posters showing one of the Olympic Values.
Towards 2012
Following the excitement and inspiration resulting from visiting athletes, St Mary’s would love to extend this and invite a Paralympian to visit school. The PRIDE system will continue with special treats being planned for children achieving all the awards.
St Mary’s feels they will have achieved ultimate success if every child in the school really wants to get involved in the Games in some capacity.
“Even those children who say they dislike sport can still see how they can get involved in The Games in their own way and have fun.”
