"Allez! Let’s go to Olympus"
A Sports Day
with a difference
a cross-curricular approach harnessing the Olympic values
With the Olympic Games starting in Paris next year, we are delighted to offer you our latest activity day: “Allez! Let’s go to Olympus”, a Sports Day with a difference. It is a cross-curricular approach harnessing the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect with a focus on the culture of France. Your school will travel to a French school without the hassle and planning of a residential trip abroad.
Steps Up’s Allez! Let’s go to Olympus is an inclusive and immersive experience which celebrates language learning and provides young people with key skills in Literacy, Oracy and Physical Education. We understand how difficult it is to bring languages to life, often with non specialist teachers delivering languages and PE in primary schools. We focus on making language learning relevant and steeped in authentic French culture.
Partnering with Michaël Vidon
We are partnering with Michaël Vidon, a Spoken Word Educator and a MFL teacher. Michaël has taught poetry in the UK for the last decade in a range of education settings (EYFS to Degree-level), Arts Organisations (Stephen Spender Trust, Eastside Education Trust) as well as Institut Français and the European Union Delegation in London. He also teaches French, his native language, at a Sussex secondary school and has experience of French teaching at KS1 to KS5. He specialises in marrying language learning with creativity. His aim is to allow students to have fun with languages and increase children’s confidence with multilingual poetry workshops and competitions.
Michaël Vidon is a challenging, creative person who starts fires in people's minds. He sparks off thoughts and ideas so that other people can think and create new things. Sometimes he uses his own poetry, sometimes he plays with the language around and in us. So his poems aren't end-points; they are mid-points: the poems are the result of his energetic thoughts and experiences and the triggers for new creations by others. This is good for poetry and good for life.
Michaël Rosen, Children’s author, Poet and Professor
As I sat in the multilingual poetry workshop and saw lower ability and dyslexic children dipping confidently and creatively into their home and school languages, I got that magic feeling of ‘this is what learning is really about’.
Liz Cook, Year 4 teacher at Europa School, Oxfordshire
Programme of activities
The day is set up as a competition with a carousel of events, medals for individual events as well as overall team results. Alongside points for performance, each activity leader will award teams extra points for use of languages as well as demonstrating sportsmanship and kindness.
Our activities inspire and enable all students to discover their hidden talents, increase confidence and achieve successful outcomes.
Our activities inspire and enable all students to discover their hidden talents, increase confidence and achieve successful outcomes.
Activities include:
- Traditional French games
- Olympic/ Paralympic sports competitions
- Language activities
- All games are delivered with instructions and rules in French and English and come with text-based and visual resources.
Language based activities:
- Literacy: a multilingual Poetry workshop where students write a group poem in small groups based on their experience competing in teams.
- Problem Solving and Numeracy: puzzles mixing numbers in French language for students to solve in groups.
- Oracy: performance competition. Students will compete in a Poetry Slam and can choose to perform on a beat accompanied by our DJ.
Supporting key focus groups
Inclusivity
The programme is also a great way to support key focus groups. We have our own SEND and SEMH coordinators to ensure our programmes cater for all students needs. This day is inclusive and also brings to the fore the Paralympic values of determination, equality, inspiration and courage. For example, many of the activities are completely new to students and test a range of skills, therefore increasing everyone child’s progress. Similarly, students with EAL will be celebrated and can use their home languages in all activities.
Why choose us?
We guarantee an
unforgettable experience
Experienced and qualified teachers
Teachers with a wealth of experience-‘we do everything, so you don’t have to’
Educational knowledge
Exceptional expertise