Eighty kilometres east of Moree is a small country town of 1300 people called Warialda. The local high school is using the Australian Olympic Committee’s Olympic Day celebrations as an opportunity to engage students in sport and demonstrate country children can achieve great things too.

“We are having a whole week of Olympic activities,” teacher Dale Beattie said. “It is about getting kids to participate in sport and getting them active.”

Beattie stresses the week is not just about playing sport but using sport to encourage learning in other areas.

“We shall be looking at the Olympic Games in a holistic way, across all key learning areas, from English to science to maths. The students shall be completing a lesson on velocity in science and we are using examples from the Olympics.”

On Thursday Olympic silver medallist Louise Currey will visit the school to participate in the Warialda Decathlon.

“Having an Olympian come to the school, particularly a small country town, shows the kids you don’t have to live in the cities to get recognition,” Beattie said. “It shows the country kids that if they put the hard work in, they can do anything.”

Beattie has organised the students into teams, which have been named after Olympic countries. The students will compete across a range of serious and novelty events, like javelin, high jump, a gumboot throw and wheelbarrow race.

“Olympic Day has been a great opportunity to raise the profile of sports. It has been great fun. It is good learning and puts learning into context,” Beattie said.

Currey, a triple Olympian who competed in javelin at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, will speak at the afternoon school assembly about how she got involved in sport, the positive impact it has had on her life and her experience at the Olympic Games. The Moree resident will then present the sports awards from the recent school athletics carnival.

Olympic Day is an international community event celebrating sport, education and culture. In Australia, Olympians are returning to school to talk about their experience at the Olympic Games and the positive impact sport has had on their life.  

Through the AOC’s education program, the a.s.p.i.r.e. school network, schools are provided with a framework to create their own Olympic Day activities that reflect on the a.s.p.i.r.e. values developed by the Australian Olympic Team.

AOC