The Olympic and Paralympic Games are about much more than sporting excellence. Underpinning the Games is the philosophy of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic Movement.
He saw in the Games an ideal opportunity to develop a set of universal principles – or Values – that could be applied to education and to society as a whole, as well as to sport itself.
These Values are:
- respect – fair play; knowing one’s own limits; and taking care of one’s health and the environment
- excellence – how to give the best of oneself, on the field of play or in life; taking part; and progressing according to one’s own objectives
- friendship – how, through sport, to understand each other despite any differences
The Paralympic Values are based on the history of the Paralympic Games and the tradition of fair play and honourable sports competition.
They are:
- courage
- determination
- inspiration
- equality.
Watch a video about the Olympic and Paralympic Values
Get Set is built around those seven Olympic and Paralympic Values, and the Get Set network programme provides children and young people with a chance to prove that they too can reflect the Values in their lives, places of learning and local communities.
According to independant research carried out in May and June 2010, 69% of respondents said that their students were inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic Values and 45% of respondents agreed that focusing on the Olympic and Paralympic Values has had a significant impact on the school.
“Values have been a huge hook for us to hang everything on, a whole school enrichment programme, the whole school having to follow, the students are passionate about it. Seeing what the Values have brought out of them, the journey, it’s awesome to see, it’s opened their eyes” (Teacher)
“You can talk about the holocaust and can link it to equality, link it to everything, it cuts across everything. We’ve put the values up, adopted them for the school, can explore around bullying, we look at it, have tied it in with lots of changes at the school, adopted 5 houses at the school, colour of the rings, everything linked back, a framework that makes it easy” (Teacher)
Watch a video about the impact Get Set is having in schools and colleges across the UK.
