Road to Rio

The biggest sporting event on the planet comes to Brazil from 5-21 August 2016

Posted by Hannah Oakman | July 01, 2016 | Sports & Leisure

• #olympics
• #rio-2016
• #farlington-school
• #wellingborough-prep-school
• #school-sport
• #festival

Global sporting events like the Olympics provide schools with an opportunity to introduce new sports, promote careers in sport and equip children with a ‘global mindset’. As well as curriculum-based activities, the Olympics also give schools the chance for a good old-fashioned celebration.

Key facts: Rio 2016

• Dates: 5-21 August 2016
• Host nation: Brazil
• Competition venues: 10
• Sports: 28
• Competing nations: 205
• Competing athletes: 10,500 

Farlington School’s celebrated at their recent Prep Sports Festival, which was opened with an Olympic-style Parade of Nations. Year five girls from Farlington as well as local schools Loxwood Primary, Cranleigh Church of England Primary and Greenway Academy paraded like athletes in an Olympic stadium, carrying flags while live music was played by Farlington musicians.

The festival was run by the year 10 Sports Leaders as the final part of their Level 1 in Sports Leadership. They displayed excellent organisational, communication and leadership skills ensuring that all those involved had a fun-filled and safe afternoon of sport.

The event started with an endurance race of 600m. A wide range of activities followed, with the girls moving from station to station trying their hand at a wide range of skills including hurdles, striking a rounders ball, scoring hockey goals, throwing, golf and jumping. All of the teams were competing for gold in each activity. The afternoon ended with a celebratory tea for the nine and 10 year-olds after which Louise Higson, Farlington Headmistress, presented medals to winners and runners-up. All girls were presented with a participation certificate.

Sara Whittaker, Farlington’s Director of PE and Games, said: “It was great afternoon of fun, with an immense amount of talent on show from all the pupils involved. They all entered into the spirit of the Olympic parade, waving at the cheering supporters.

“The year 10 girls did a fantastic job of leading and encouraging the younger girls. Hopefully everyone had the chance to try something new, but most importantly everyone enjoyed the experience. With so many external pressures on girls, sport is an excellent way of building girls’ self-esteem, teaching them that winning and losing has nothing to do with your worth as a person and that hard work, repetition and constant practice are keys to successful performance. Nurturing a love of sport is something that will prove invaluable to them as they progress through life.”

Wellingborough Prep School is holding an ‘active learning day’ to celebrate the Olympics. All pupils will get involved, tackling six activities throughout the day ranging from mini Olympics to writing reports on the Olympic events.

The activities are intended to encourage active learning and pupils from all year groups will work as teams. The school will encourage all pupils to develop their problem solving, creative thinking, question posing and persistence throughout the course of the day.

The activities are designed to: 

• Ensure depth, challenge and enjoyment with a different approach to learning
• Provide choice and exploration
• Encourage collaboration, team work and communication
• Develop creativity in thinking and get the pupils to think about the things they are doing
• Get pupils involved — analysing, synthesizing and evaluating

Over 50% of Team BG medallists in Beijing came from independent schools. Here are some of the alumni on the team at Rio...

Sailing 

• Ben Saxton - Kimbolton School
• Charlotte Dobson - Lomond School, Helensburgh

Shooting 

• Amber Hill - Claires Court School
• Jennifer McIntosh - Dollar Academy

Slalom Canoe

• David Florence - Stewart’s Melville College, Edinburgh

Swimming

• Ben Proud - Plymouth College
• James Guy - Millfield

Contacts

Farlington School: www.farlingtonschool.net

Wellingborough Prep School: www.wellingboroughschool.org