National Olympic Day dominates in East Staffordshire

Thursday 23 June saw schools in East Staffordshire participating in a number of sporting events to celebrate National Olympics Day. With just over a year remaining until London 2012, pupils from the ages of 4–19 took part in Olympic runs and cycling events, multi sports festivals and dance shows to create a fantastic sporting festival.  Funded through the Big Lottery Awards for All programme, obtained by the East Staffordshire School Sport Partnership, clusters of schools took part in different events following careful local planning.  

As part of the event, pupils and staff, (flanked by two PSCO’s) from Blessed Robert Sutton started an 8 mile relay run from their school to a number of primary schools, passing their Olympic torches and picking up different groups of young athletes along the way, all of whom ran 1.5 -2 miles within the town. After 2 ? hours of running, pupils finished with a cross country leg around Robert Sutton and then were treated to a multi skills festival led by year 8 pupils from the school.

Julie Finney from St Edwards summed up the event by saying ... “the young sports leaders were excellent and our pupils in year five had a great afternoon and returned to school singing the praises of the staff and pupils at Blessed Robert Sutton. The organisation of the event was second to none!”

At the same time, Year 7 pupils from Paulet High School were taking part in their own run round their school grounds with pupils from Violet Way, Riverview and Edge Hill.  600 pupils were treated to a mass “wake up, shake up” warm up by the Paulet Young Ambassadors prior to the event and in the afternoon also took part in a dance festival. These schools also produced a partnership Olympic flag which was presented to each school by Tracy Hanson, SSCo at Paulet who had organised the event for the schools. The flag featured a logo designed by a pupil from each school, reflecting their school association with the Olympic Values.

Pupils from schools close to Paget High School also took part an Olympic run with Burton College students supporting runners from a number of local schools. Pupils from Paget also organised their own sports festivals following the run, organising and leading all the activities being delivered. A cross curricular approach was taken in the schools with the arts department designing and making torches for the schools to use on the day.

Seven schools in the De Ferrers Cluster took part in their own run. Representing various countries around the world where previous Olympic Games have taken place, the schools participated in a relay race using torches designed by the De Ferrers Academy D&T department as their batons. Year 7 pupils also supported the event cheering on those who were taking part.

The Middle Schools in Uttoxeter took part in a cycling and running event involving over 180 pupils, with the winning team coming from Oldfields Hall Middle School.

John Taylor students took part in their own fancy dress relay race whilst their local primary schools all organised their own individual events.  At Mosley Primary Schools, pupils collectively ran a total of 94 miles during the day, their Primary Link Teacher Hannah Chapman said, “we couldn’t stop them running, the whole school just ran and ran.  It was fantastic."

 Violet Lane Dance

Schools involved in the Olympic Day activities were:

• Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Sports College
• Holy Rosary Catholic Primary School
• Holy Trinity CE Primary School
• St Modwen’s Catholic Primary School
• St Charles’ Catholic Primary School
• St Edward’s Catholic Primary School
  
• The De Ferrers Academy
• Eton Park Junior School
• Horninglow Primary School
• John of Rolleston Primary School
• Lansdowne Infants School
• Richard Wakfield CE (VC) Primary School
• Outwoods Primary School
• William Shrewsbury Primary School
   
• Paget High School
• Anglesey Foundation Primary School
• Belvedere Junior School
• Christchurch Infants School
• Grange Community School
• Rykneld Primary School
• Shobnall Primary School
• Burton College
  
• John Taylor High School
• Needwood CE (VA) Primary School
• The Mosley School
• All Saints CE (C) Primary School, Alrewas
• All Saints CE (C) Primary School, Rangemore
• The Richard Crosse CE (VA) Primary School
• Thomas Russell Infants School
• Thomas Russell Junior School
• Yoxall St Peter's CE (VC) Primary School
   
• Paulet High School
• Edge Hill Junior School
• River View Primary and Nursery School
• Violet Way Academy
   
• Abbot Beyne High School   
                                                                                 
• Oldfields Hall Middle School
• Ryecroft Middle School
• Windsor Park Middle School
• Talbot First School
• St Peter’s Marchington
• Hutchingston Memorial CE First School

For more information contact:

Caroline Smith
Partnership Development Manager
Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Sports College
T: 01283 749463
E: c.smith@esssp.org.uk