Friday, 9 May 2008
Young Ambassador Hannah Corbett tells us about the mini Olympics she organised in the Lichfield and Burntwood Partnership.
“In order to do something different for young children to get involved with sport and to gain knowledge about the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games, I came up with the idea of a ‘mini Olympics!’ The age group I focused on was year 5 pupils at five catchment area primary schools. Altogether there were 180 children, so a lot of organisation had to be made to ensure they all knew what they were doing and had a great day.
On Tuesday, 29 April they came to my school and competed in fun games. I decided to make the games different to a normal Olympics which meant every child could have a fair chance of winning, or excelling in, at least one game not just the best sports players. This way the children enjoyed sport and felt they were a winner. My aim of the day was everyone can enjoy and be a winner in sport
The events included an obstacle course with lots of different skill elements, an egg and spoon race, a word search based on facts about the Olympics so those children who were very intellectual could engage in the day, a tennis based event and a game of skittles.
Each of the five primary schools represented a different country and competed against each other to win gold, silver or bronze medals. The countries were UK, USA, Australia, China and Russia. The children had flags of their country to help cheer each other on and dressed up in the colours of their flags to show who they were.
My schools sports council helped me organise this and also as I am a dance leader of the school, I involved all the other dancers and some singers to open the ‘Mini Olympics’ with a fantastic opening ceremony. Just like the real Olympic Games, the children walked a lap around the school field with an Olympic torch which was being specially made, to the national anthem of each represented country.”