Ideas for the classroom: Olympics 2004

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

The Spirit of the Games

The Olympic Games have always had strong links with religion. You could look at the opening and closing ceremonies to compare secular and religious ceremonies. This can be linked to Units 1D 'Beliefs and practice' and 2C 'Celebrations'.

Older pupils could look up Bible references about games and athletics. This fits in with Unit 5D, 'How do the beliefs of Christians influence their actions?'

Saint Paul compares the Christian life to that of an athlete. Children could look at the similarities and differences between the two lifestyles to help them understand how the religious language is being used. The relevant quotations are: 1 Corinthians 9:24; 1 Corinthians 9:26; Ephesians 6:12; Hebrews 12:1.

PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION (PSHE)

Games for everyone

The Olympic Games are an excellent PSHE-resource that link to Units 1 and 2 schemes of work. Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern games, was inspired by the ideals of Olympism, including mass participation, personal excellence, fair play, cultural exchange and international understanding. He believed that emulating these ideals would make the world a better place. Do the Games achieve this? Could we apply these ideals to our classrooms?

The Olympic motto is 'swifter, higher, stronger'. Pupils could think of a three-word motto for their school. They could consider an athlete's diet and design a diet for themselves. 

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)

Super sports on the super highway

The Olympic Games offer a wealth of data that can be analysed and interpreted using ICT. Pupils can compare data and produce graphs and charts on their computers. This idea can be used in Unit 3C 'Introduction to databases'. Pupils could use a spreadsheet to compare the best times in a particular sport in the last six Summer Olympics and then track that sport this year.

The official British Olympics website has information on how well Britain has performed in various Olympic events throughout the years. It has data on how many gold, silver and bronze medals were won in past Games and on how many men and women participated. Pupils could draw up a database using the following fields: year, city, number of men, number of women, gold medal total, silver medal total, bronze medal total, total medals, flagbearer, sport. Another way to incorporate the Olympics into ICT lessons is to use the internet. Pupils could research a particular event, such as swimming, or could research important people in Olympic history, such as Pierre de Coubertin. This could link to lessons in PSHE or citizenship on Unit 2C 'Finding information' in the ICT schemes of work.

A branching database can be used to identify a particular sport or piece of equipment (Unit 4C) and graphical modelling can be used to design the layout of an Olympic Village using a vector drawing program (Unit 5A).

FURTHER INFORMATION

Find out more about the Olympics and nutrition:

www.olympics.org.uk/teamgb/summergames.asp

www.infoplease.com/ipsa/a0115110.html

This content was published in July 2004 and may not reflect current policy