London 2012 blog

I'm one of the Young Ambassadors promoting London 2012 – spreading the message of how great the Games are going to be and using them to inspire young people to be more healthy and active. This is my journey over the last year:

September 2007
I went to a conference at Derby FC where I met Olympic champions and learnt what my role as young ambassador would be. This completely inspired me and I knew from this day that I wanted to inspire and excite children about sport, health and fitness as well as London 2012 just like I was inspired.

From this I thought how I would achieve my aims and that is when I came up with the 'Mini Games' idea! I knew that I was not always the best sportswoman and so wanted to create a day that involved all children and made them feel like they are special and good at something. The aim of the day was; anyone can enjoy and be a winner of sport.

I involved 190 Year 5 students from the five feeder schools in my partnership. Each school represented a different country and participated in five events. However the events were not normal Olympic Games' events, and I wanted them to have a different skill so that each child would excel in at least one, for example physical, cognitive and coordination skills. The events were an obstacle course, egg and spoon race, skittles, tennis and an Olympic Games word search. The schools moved round the events and each winner from an event got an automatic place in the relay giving a total of five people representing their school and country in the relay and the winning school of the relay was the overall winner.

I made an opening ceremony with a performance including 6th form dancers and singers. Then the children did a parade around the school field with James Hillier the Sporting Champion (guest of honour) while their national anthem was played and handmade Olympic-style torch was used - just like the real thing! There was also a closing ceremony of first, second and third placed children receiving gold, silver and bronze medals! All children who participated had a certificate in recognition of their effects and so they all achieved something.

November
However, I did not want to go into this straight away, I wanted to get to know the children I was involving first and to make sure that they knew what the Olympic Games were all about. I contacted the Primary Link Teachers (PLTs) of the school and arranged to go into the school during November and December and perform a presentation and workshops. The presentation involved telling them who I was and what my role was. I then asked them if they knew anything about the Olympic Games and the response was quite pleasing but I felt it was limited and the only children who knew a lot were those who participated in sport. We then played a facts game with the children in groups and they guessed whether the fact was true or false.

The workshops were based on the Olympic ideals, friendship, respect and excellence. For 'friendship' I played a fast friendship game where the children imagined they were athletes at London 2012 and had to go and introduce themselves to their other peers as that athlete. For 'respect' I played a game of football with the children and every time they noticed that I broke the rules of the game they were allowed to shout at me! For 'excellence' I had the children writing an idea on the board of how to improve and maintain a fit and healthy life as well as how to improve in their sport. I then told them a little bit about my plans for the Mini Games in which they were really excited!

January 2008
I went to a conference in Stafford to see what the counties plans were to support London 2012. This again inspired me and after seeing an Olympic Champion there I wanted to get one for my Mini Games.

February
I started to plan the Mini Games. I had to sort out all questions such as how many children shall I involve and what age? What countries can they represent? What events? What prizes? What can I do for the opening ceremony? What equipment do I need? What helpers do I need? How to contact the press? Timing of the events?

March
I held a meeting with my PE staff so they could help and support me. They loved the idea and suggested I asked our School Sports Council team to help run the events and be sports leaders on the day. I selected these straight after and explained to them what they would have to do.

April
I choreographed the opening ceremony and had to hold rehearsals. I held a meeting with all the PLT's and gave them a 'to do' list with a power point of how they could get their school involved and all help they would need in order to know what was happening on the day. The Mini Games was planned for April 29th however it had to be cancelled due to inclement weather. This was a big disaster and a school dropped out because they were afraid it would happen again. As a result of this I selected another local school.

June
I managed to get the sporting champion James Hillier to come to the day by applying to the Sporting Champion's website. I was really excited about this because I knew he would really make the day more special for the children.



July
The big day actually happened on July 8th. It was a complete success and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. They all participated and had fun which was the main thing.

A short time later, I gave a presentation to over 300 people, during the School Sports Presentation Evening, describing my journey and my Mini Games.

I returned to each of the schools involved to present the children with their certificates and thank them for participating. I also showed them all the photographs of the day.

I am also planning to make a resource pack to start my own Olympic legacy that other people can use to create their own Mini Games!

To date the event has been reviewed on the Youth Sport Trust website, appeared in a Sporting Champions report, in two local newspapers and the N.U.T Teachers magazine.