Creating a Sporting Legacy from London 2012

This post outlines my top five suggestions for keeping motivated and continuing to inspire a generation long after the roars from the Olympic stadium and atmosphere of the Olympic and Paralympic games have become fond but faint memories of the sporting summer of 2012.

1. Don’t get demoralised by Government and Govian educational policy and funding changes.

It is easy to become demoralised when the government does’t match the media hype and propaganda it portrays to the public with its policy and funding allocation. Politicians stating the importance of supporting and embedding a sporting legacy on the surface whilst behind closed doors reducing funding allocations, toppling sports partnerships and reducing the emphasis on the importance of physical education in favour of more traditional educational models highlights the depth of governmental support. Stay motivated and upbeat and don’t let the system get you down. Be thankful for what we have got, the School Games, resilient and inspired teachers off of the back of the Olympics and the opportunity to prove our critics wrong and re-engage them with the purpose and value of physical education and school sport.

2. Continual small efforts amount to big differences.

Keep plugging away, keep inspiring one child at a time and before you know it you will have an inspired fleet behind you. Re-engage the dis-engaged, change perceptions and introduce new learning opportunities. Take each day as it comes and take pride in the small things.

3. HQPE

High quality physical education learning experiences will naturally inspire a generation to choose and engage in physical education and sport. Ensure all pupils achieve, have the opportunity to succeed, learn new skills and experience new things. Personalise learning where possible and differentiate learning tasks. Develop the whole learner and attempt to enlighten pupils on the importance of physical literacy throughout the life course.

4. Tap into government initiatives

Use existing initiatives to help deliver your message and aid you with your work. Useful initiatives can be found on the Youth Sports Trust website below:

https://www.youthsporttrust.org/programmes

Sky Sports Living for Sport, Bupa Start to Move and Change for Life are initiatives that I have used over the past year and they have really helped to add prestige or support the delivery of initiatives within school to re-engage the disengaged or to raise the profile of PE and school sport.

The following link is to the DCMS paper on creating a sporting habit for life. It’s useful reading material if you are stuck for ideas.

• Creating a sporting habit for life – A new youth sport strategy

5. Morale

Keep morale up. We never have enough time as teachers but try and make the time to pursue your ideas and when you’re running low on motivation watch an inspirational video to get you back on track. Here are some I found earlier:

But most importantly, as Jeremy Hunt (Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics Media and Sport) says,

Quite simply, we will never have a better chance to transform our sporting culture than in the months and years ahead. Together, we need to make the most of this once-in-a-generation opportunity.

We are not in it for the sprint but for the marathon, inspiring a generation off the back of the London Olympics and for future Olympics to come. If not us as PE teachers then who will inspire the next generation?

How are you planning to inspire the next generation?