Olympics 2012

Ready to Run

Olympic Resources

for Parishes and Schools

There is an amazing amount of material available for parishes and schools to help them engage with the 2012 London Olympics.

The key website, the home of the official London 2012 education programme, is: .

The site offers inspirational videos, Get Set ‘heroes’, and a whole host of good resources. There are a number of assemblies for children of different ages and although they do not offer a religious element, this could be added.

The site reminds us that 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.

You can download a video about the Olympic and Paralympic Values on the website:

Get Set is built round the seven Olympic and Paralympic Values, and the Get Set network programme provides 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 independent 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)

The Olympic and Paralympic Values

Many parishes and schools work hard on developing and embedding Christian ethos and values; materials like Di Thomas and Stephen Holroyd’s ‘Values in Schools’,
H & T Publishing,ISBN9780956708809; the Gloucester ‘Values for Life’ programme mailto:and the National Society’s Christian Values for Schools website are well-used.

This connects well with the concern of the Olympic authorities to encourage particular values and to ensure there is a real legacy for the local and international community as a result of each Games.

For example the National Sport Week website says:

EXAMPLE: National Sport Week - 27 June- 1 July 2011

Core to the entire week are the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Whether on the sports field or in class, pupils consider the Values and commit to demonstrate them through their behaviour and interaction with others.

The National School Sport Week Planning Pack provides guidance on how to incorporate the values into school activities and help pupils prove that they too can reflect the values in their lives - at school, at home and in the local community. They give examples of how the Values have been used by schools:

Olympic Values

Excellence
One school allocated each department an Olympic Games Host City card e.g. RE got Beijing; Maths got Sydney. Cards were awarded for excellent work and students rewarded for collecting as many as possible.

Friendship
The John Cabot and Bristol Brunel Academy Federation, Bristol, ran a virtual 100m challenge between South Africa and Bristol with video conference links to partner schools in South Africa.

Respect
During sports lessons, Lumley Infant and Nursery school noted when children showed great enthusiasm or helped others and worked as a team. 2 or 3 children per sport received a special achievement award.

Paralympic Values

Courage
Ten young people from WilsonStuartSchool and SportsCollege, a special school in Birmingham, organised a festival for children in their local mainstream primary school.

Determination
Year 7 and 8 pupils at MountbattenSchool devised a 1000m run/relay course with motivational signs about the values placed along the course. For example: “If you wish to achieve, determination is the key.”

Equality
At BishopChallonerSchool, a Disability Sport Day raised awareness for the special skills required in these sports. It was student-led from the ideas to the design.

Inspiration
Risca Comprehensive in Caerphilly organized an action-packed day of Food and Fitness. Y9 pupils took part in cycling, dodge ball and had health checks to inspire everyone to a healthy lifestyle.

Religious Education

Studies of where we get our values from and religious examples…..

Useful material available from RE Today Services (

Values is the first book in the Opening up RE series. Many schools take a whole school approach to values development. RE has a key role to play in this by helping children to make the link between what we believe and how we believe. Many values originate in the wisdom of the faith traditions and in the teaching of key religious figures. Reflective exploration of these provides a great opportunity for the spiritual and moral development of children at the same time as doing great RE, helping them learn about and learn from religion.

Respect provides lots of useful activities to encourage thinking about how values are put into action in daily life and relationships.

Emotions and Values as part of the Easter Story in the term before the Olympics could be useful.

Design of torch to cover themes of justice etc – link with symbols in faiths which represent particular values.

Ask whether the values are Christian – justify with bible stories or teaching. Are they Muslim or Hindu or secular? Are all the values good ones? Ask if the games should promote other values e.g. hospitality, welcome, justice, service, compassion.

From Barnabas/BRF

Values Assemblies

Collective Worship

Exploring Values with Bible Stories

To be published by BRF/Barnabas:

Ø‘Who comes first?’ by Chris Hudson

Being the inspirational stories of nine Olympic athletes; this book is an Olympic-themed classroom and assembly resource for RE teachers

Schools can be encouraged to use values as a framework for a long or short series of assemblies …. There are already a number of powerpoint presentations of the values on You-tube; obviously teachers have set their creation as homework tasks! Some are very good!

One school writes:

As part of our Olympic Dream Project we are using the Olympic and Paralympic Values to inspire our assemblies and stimulate discussions within the classes. Last month the children considered the Olympic Value of Friendship and its importance to us at EdlesboroughSchool.

This half term our Olympic Value is Respect, and we look forward to Judith’s visit helping us to have a greater understanding and respect for all people with disabilities. Each class will be presenting an assembly on one of the values over the next few months. Future values include Excellence, Courage, Determination, Equality and Inspiration.

Where schools are already using ‘Values for Life’ or the National Society material links can easily be made.

Awards for particular values …. Medals with ribbons – write the value along the ribbons, design certificates …

Collect stories, sporting and otherwise which illustrate the values ….

BBC assemblies:

General Resources for Schools

Useful websites:

h

ttp://

Why Get Set?

Joining the Get Set network meant recognition for activities already taking place and an extra incentive to continue building up to London 2012. HeathPrimary School (Suffolk, East England) was aiming to widen the school’s involvement with the Games and achieve a long term effect on children’s outlook of others.

Plans were in place to share experiences with children in other schools via the Get Set blog, and to increase links both with Olympic and Paralympic athletes and children in other countries.

The Journey So Far

Children and adults including Olympic and Paralympic athletes have created tiles displaying personal challenges they aim to achieve by 2012; the end result a hugely impressive ‘Wall of Challenges’ made from 600 ceramic tiles in total! The grand opening event was in the form of a community day supported by local sports clubs and organisations and attended by the Deputy Chairman of LOCOG.

Regular visits from athletes have featured strongly e.g.having successfully won the ‘Gold Medal Idea of the Fortnight’ on the Paralympic Handover site, Heath Primary was visited by fencer Richard Kruse.

A section of the school’s learning platform is dedicated to London 2012 and great use has been made of the Get Set blog as an inspiring record of what’s been happening both in school and nationally.

Medals are being awarded to those children who show Olympic and Paralympic Values in their everyday lives.

Positive Values

Excitement and inspiration has been generated by visits from athletes who have given the same message but in slightly different ways – find something that you’re good at and keep going, don’t give up! Awareness of disability has increased both through children meeting Paralympians and working with a local special school and disability sports clubs.

Children have experienced new sports through meeting athletes and attending the community day. Local sports clubs have already reported increased interest and new members as a result of the day.

A positive impact on the curriculum has been experienced through the huge scope for cross curricular opportunities.

And the highlights for students?

  • ‘We have had many famous people signing tiles so that we can put them on our wall.’
  • ‘Our tile wall is something to be proud of. We did this project in inspiration of the Olympics in London 2012. Everyone is pleased with the effort made and we hope that many other Olympians come to do their tile too!’
  • ‘Whatever you look like or whatever your disability is, you can still fulfil your dreams.’

Towards 2012 - Heath Primary wants to build on successes made in generating awareness of the opportunities offered by the Olympic and Paralympic Games, aiming for children to:

  • Participate in a wider range of sports than ever before
  • Watch athletes taking part in London 2012
  • Achieve personal goals.

To be recognised locally and nationally as having played a part in both the build up to and the legacy of London 2012 continues to be seen as really important.

Two musicals which could be used for a school production / linked church-school production:

The Glorious Games

On your marks. Get set. Go! Join the Spirit of the Games for a fascinating journey through the history of the Olympic Games, from their origins in Ancient Greece, their re-birth in 1896, to the hopes and dreams of today's aspiring young athletes. With a wide range of different options for staging your production, The Glorious Games is sure to win a gold medal.

(

9781848673502 £14.99


That's What I Call a Class Assembly: The Ancient Greeks

by Mary Green & Julie Stanley

Ages: 7-11 years

It's Greek Day at school and everyone is involved - even Mrs Plato, the dinner lady. With the help of the Ancient Greek Teacher, the children discover ancient myths, legends and fables, take part in the original olympic games, perform Aesop's The Hare and the Tortoise and find out how Pheidippedes ran the first marathon.

Materials for school Christian groups

Powerpoints and group sessions based on the marathon and the idea of running the race. The slides have little in the way of words and could be adapted from their intended upper secondary school use. The resource was put together for Beijing so ‘Who wants to be a sweetionaire?’ needs some adapting.

Christian Holiday Club /after-school club materials:

Materials already published:

Champions Challenge – Scripture Union Holiday club material produced in 2001 for the 2008 Olympics. Still useful. Downloads including a ‘Champions’ song are freely downloadable at:

Champions (2010, Barnabas) uses the analogy of the Olympic Games to explore how Jesus 'ran the race' for God. It is designed to encourage children also to run that race, running straight towards the goal and finishing the race in order to win the ultimate prize of eternal life. This is the prize that God offers to each one of us through the work of his Son, Christ Jesus

New for 2012 and already advertised on Amazon etc is

The Sports Academy Holiday Club ~ a Five-day Holiday Club Plan, complete and ready-to-run by John Hardwick and Peter Privett . This will be published by Barnabas.

Church materials

This is the website of the main organisation mobilising churches to offer service, hospitality and the good news of the Christian faith: .

The website says:

Schools will be using the Olympic theme in their lessons and relating it to the curriculum. After all, it is ready made for everything from history to geography and more.
To help churches make the link with such a high level of interest, we are working on Olympic-related ideas and resources for –

  • School assemblies
  • After school clubs

Where possible these will link with Key Stage 1, 2 and possibly 3 age groups.

To be published by BRF/Barnabas there will also be:

ØMessy Sports Fun by Lucy Moore

Being session outlines and celebration ideas, including crafts, on an Olympic theme for churches

Ø‘SportsAcademy’ will be published jointly with Scripture Union. (N.B. I wasn’t however aware that PeterPrivett was also an author of this, but this may be true. He is not mentioned on Amazon as a co-author). Champions, which you list, is available still, though was linked specifically to the Athens Olympics (7 years ago!). It does have useful ideas but people would do best to buy SportsAcademy, published January 2012

1