Building an Olympic Legacy: A herculean task.

The Olympic Games have been brilliant. I’ve enjoyed watching them on television and (fortunately) live, I’ve loved being a Gamesmaker. Now they’re over (at least for two weeks till the Paralympics start) and one of the talking points towards the end of the Olympics has been about the legacy and how the inspiration that they have provided can be turned into achievement.

Part of this has involved debate over the place over sport in school. David Cameron has talked about the importance of sport in school in the very week that the government scrapped the compulsory two hours a week of sport (or ‘activity’) in primary schools. Cameron went on television to decry the fact that schools were actually having pupils take part in Indian dance (later in the week he was adding “I’ve nothing against dance”) and that competitive sport and team games were the answer.  I think this is a bogus argument on several counts.

I am not agaisnt competitive sports, though it is important that young people are valued and not branded as failures if they are better at drama or music or academic subjects.  All these need to be part of the national curriculum, not removed from it as Michael Gove would have. 

There also needs to be a huge variety of sports offered so young people have the opportunity to discover what they enjoy and excel at. Cameron has talked about the compulsory sports being ‘recognised or recognisable sports. My question from this is whether the sports in schools will that be limited to football, rugby, hockey and athletics or will it include cycling, gymnastics, tennis, badminton, canoeing, swimming, diving, rowing, sailing – all of which Great Britain and Northern Ireland have won medals at in the last few Olympic games – many of which will require partnerships with local sports clubs who have the coaches and equipment needed to participate in many of these sports. That means money – money for equipment, money to pay coaches, money for facilities – playing fields, swimming pools, gyms.

Competition also doesn’t just mean playing in teams. Only one medal of the 65 won by GB has come in a ‘traditional’ team sport (the bronze won by the women’s hockey team) others have been won by quartets, pairs and individuals (and the rowing eight). 

When I was at school I wasn’t very good at sport – however two instances stand out that showed how well sport was handled at my secondary school.

Firstly, when I was about 13 we had a term of swimming lessons which included races and timing. I wasn’t a strong swimmer.  I was small, not strong and because of a heart condition I couldn’t keep going for a long time. This was a school that was competitive – there was a board in the swimming pool with the school records written on it. Towards the end of term we were timed for 50 meters breaststroke. I finished a full 25 meters behind the fastest and everyone else had gone to get changed by the time I finished.  When I got out of the pool my teacher didn’t criticise me, but rather congratulated me on achieving a personal best time. My report that term mentioned how much I’d improved over the course of the term – even though I was still way off winning anything or even being ‘competitive’ but I still felt like I had achieved something.

The second instance came in my final term at school. I really like cricket but I’m not very good at it – in fact I’m pretty bad, but I’m very enthusiastic. When I was in my final year my school had a school second cricket XI  for the first time in years. I was made captain of this team.  My enthusiasm and what I was able to contribute to the team was publicly acknowledged and valued in a significant way even if I wasn’t going to score lots of runs or take lots of wickets. The fact that I had something important to contribute and that this was recognised by someone whose opinion I respected was very significant – not for my cricketing career as unsurprisingly I didn’t suddenly get a lot more skilful but in my life. Team sports aren’t about picking the best eleven people, it’s about bringing together those who will complement each other well and create an effective team.

In both of these cases the people involved were specialist sports teachers, not history teachers expected to coach football or cricket or swimming in their spare time. While having teachers of other subjects willing and able to be involved in school sports is great, excellence in sport requires the best teaching. If the compulsory sports are extended to primary schools then an additional resource that will help encourage and develop good sports men and women is specialist PE teachers. This is especially the case in sports that are not currently seen as ‘mainstream’. Specialist teachers are also needed to coordinate a sports curriculum, have an all-round awareness of what is needed to coach sports (physically and psychologically) and to arrange competitions within schools and against other schools. We wouldn’t accept having pupils taught physics by a history teacher who knew how to wire a plug, or English by a biology teacher who was keen on Shakespeare, we shouldn’t accept pupils being taught hockey by someone who last played when they were at school.

Countries often fall away after they have hosted the Olympics (this happened to both Australia and Greece, who are back to below the level they achieved in the games before they were the host). Great Britain and Northern Ireland may not win 65 medals in Rio de Janerio, we might not come third in the medal table but we can, and should ensure that we are in a position to do as well as in Sydney or Beijing. We won’t have the home advantage, but we could have the advantage of investment, of sport being part of what people do, of people having the opportunity to participate and find their level – whether that is Olympic gold medal winning or recreational. That would be a really amazing legacy.