Lesson plan: KS3 PE – building on the 2012 legacy

Subject:
RE
Date Posted:
06 December 2014
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More than two years on, the legacy of London 2012 can still inspire your students to make changes, explains Caroline Sidel…

Why Teach This?

The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games wowed the world. You and your students can also wow the world you live in by inspiring others to lead a healthy active lifestyle and create opportunities to live the Olympic and Paralympic values. Get Set to Make a Change is organised by the British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association and uses the spirit of London 2012 to encourage young people across the country to get more involved in their local communities. It’s a great way to help build brilliant links between your school and community. By reminiscing on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games your students can keep the excitement alive, be part of a fantastic legacy and make a difference to the lives of others. By exploring how they want to make a change in their community, students will develop many new leadership and communication skills, build confidence, create new connections, be challenged and feel rewarded. Students will discover how important the Olympic and Paralympic Values are and share their passion and enthusiasm to change the way people think and live. This is the chance for students in your school to create a fun and exciting project which produces opportunities and engages with their local community. You can empower your students, reveal unsung local heroes and strengthen links between your students, your local schools, youth clubs, neighbourhoods, friends and family or even sports clubs. By taking your students through a variety of tasks, they will end up with a great idea to pledge on the GSTMC webpage, target a chosen community and build an inspiring promotional pitch to make a change.

Starter Activity

Everyone has different recollections from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It was a powerful event, which captured the hearts of our nation with many unforgettable memories. Relive the magic of the 2012 Games by showing students the following closing montage film: http:www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19237987 In small groups get students to discuss their favourite memories from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games and how it made them feel. Using a large piece of paper students can start to create a mind map of memories which have made a difference to their lives.

Olympic Values - friendship, excellence and respect
Paralympic Values - courage, determination, equality and inspiration

How have they shown or lived these values in their everyday life, school or in their local community?
What have they gained from these experiences?
Why are these values important to them or other people?
How would they like to demonstrate or encourage others to live these values?

Finally students can talk about and note down the importance of living a healthy active lifestyle, what they like doing and how it makes them feel. Ask students to think about all the opportunities that are on offer in their school or local community. Are there any barriers to people leading an active life?

Main Activities

1. Capture a Community

Get Set to Make a Change is all about identifying a community and making a positive change by inspiring a healthier and more active lifestyle. Students are invited to make a pledge on the GSTMC website that publicly communicates their idea. This can be anything from a project to introduce local primary schools to new Paralympic sports to a mini Olympic and Paralympic games contest to teaching older residents zumba! The best pledges are sustainable, long lasting ideas that can be developed, improved and are rewarding to everyone who takes part. Using their mind map from the starter activity get students to identify one group of people within their school or wider community that they would love to help live a more active and healthier life, such as: disabled young people, a local youth group, girls in their school, or even family and friends.

A specific overall aim – this will be their pledge so students need to think about how they could make a difference and what their community needs
The three main benefits of their idea to their chosen community
The Olympic and Paralympic values that the pledge will target
The first activity they plan, and a potential date.

Allow students to be ambitious, creative and think outside the box with their ideas.

1. Super Slogan

Using a blank piece of paper or a computer encourage students to be inventive and come up with a logo and a ‘super slogan’. The slogan needs to be a memorable, catchy phrase which represents their pledge. For example: Everybody Active, or Fit for Anything. Putting a time limit on this task helps students to work together more quickly and to produce a masterpiece under pressure! The slogan and logo will make their ideas stand out from the crowd and be an effective tool to attract their community to get involved in their exciting project. They can also be used to promote any opportunities which are part of their pledge.

2. Promote the Pledge

This is the final activity to get your students really focused and imaginative with their ideas. Challenge your students to create a video pitch lasting no more than two minutes, which sells their pledge and appeals to their target community. The video pitch needs to engage and capture their community’s attention and state their idea simply. They can highlight how their pledge will benefit everyone involved and make it clear how it will value them. Encourage students to be enthusiastic and passionate about their pledge and get them to think about how it will be remembered. Give students time to write a storyboard of ideas, a script and to add any special effects to enhance their pitch. Get students to carry out and record a practice run through of their pitch so they can watch it back, improve it and use their team work and presenting skills to make it slicker for their final take. The use of tablets, smart phones and flip cameras would be ideal for this task to be really successful.

Summary

These activities have been the start of your students’ Get Set to Make a Change pledges. They can now decide on their first event / activity / opportunity to run. Once students have decided on a pledge they must upload it to the Get Set to Make a Change website: http:makeachange.org.uk/ Once students have submitted their pledge they need to report and update on how the pledge is developing. They’ll receive a certificate and will also have the chance to win extra rewards such as visits from athletes or personal messages of encouragement, and opportunities to attend special events. So, make sure your students shout about what they’re doing and how it’s making a difference to their community. At South Bromsgrove High School we won an Athlete visit for a tennis event and commonwealth games tickets just for blogging, uploading photos and reporting back on our pledges.

Home learning

The Get Set website has an array of fantastic resources for both students and teachers. Students can read case studies about other schools and their pledges and find out about the projects that are underway. This offers useful inspiration for developing their own ideas. There are also resources to help with project planning, team-working, creating videos, promoting a project and reporting and evaluating projects.

About the author

Caroline Sidell is Assistant Headteacher at South Bromsgrove High School and writes extensively on PE and sport. In 2009 she was awarded the National Sunday Times Physical Education Teacher of the Year in 2009 and she continues to work with on a wide range of initiatives including Get Set to Make a Change.

Stretch them further

Challenge students further by getting them to boost their pledge by creating a network of people to help. Students could contact local businesses, the press or key people within their community to be advocates for their pledge. Students can map out a calendar of events for when they want to start, develop and complete their pledge. Get your students to really think about the sustainability element and how their pledge will last a long time. Students could also research funding and investigate health and wellbeing projects so they could bid for some financial support for equipment, transport or kit.