Celebrating as a community
Why Get Set?
Billericay (Essex, East of England) wanted to embrace the Values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, bringing the school community together to participate, celebrate and collaborate.
Already having a strong ethos of encouraging all students to lead full and active lifestyles Billericay was ready to move forward with a range of Games-related activities and events.
The Journey So Far
Early involvement included a media studies project to create a sculpture depicting one of the Values. Image manipulation software was used to show how each sculpture would look at the Olympic Park. Commonwealth boxing medallist Darran Langley came to run a workshop and Paralympic athlete Danny Crates delivered a motivational talk to students about goal setting.
As part of a gender intervention programme girls attended an Inspirational Women conference. A Sky Sports Living for Sport project has encouraged Year 11 girls to become more active and girls in this year group have also participated in Race for Life.
Young Ambassadors are key players in getting the Values message across to others, having delivered assemblies to every primary school in Billericay and subsequently to their peers in school.
Further plans include rewards evenings, Values-related sports day events, exhibitions and performances. Links are in place with a school in Africa through PLAN UK. Cross curricular projects will help promote awareness of global issues.
A sports day has launched the next phase of the build up to the Games; around 100 members of staff amazed students by performing a surprise flashmob to officially launch the final countdown to London 2012!
Positive Values
The Values which are integral to Billericay’s school improvement strategy are used as headings for all programmes that are already integrated into the school and proposed new projects are also Values-linked.
Billericay wants all students to be aware of the Values and understand that by implementing them they are able to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. Student delivery of Values assemblies is helping hugely in the promotion of this.
And the highlights for students?
- “The most inspirational thing about the Games is that it brings communities together through watching role models in memorable events”
- “You can see how people have gone from the same level of sport as us and become heroes – it makes me want to be like that”
- “It will inspire me because it will make me want to be more active and try different sports.”
Towards 2012
Billericay aims for students to apply the Values to all aspects of life and understand that in addition to excellence in sport the Games are about bringing people together and overcoming difficulties to achieve dreams.
Plans are being made to decide how current Billericay students can create a lasting visual legacy to remain in the school forever and the intention is to use local artists from the community to work alongside students.
