Olympic Gold medal Athlete

The PE lesson, inspired by London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, is part of National School Sport Week, which takes place from 28 June to 2 July 2010.

School Reporters from the host school, Archbishop Beck Catholic College Community Sport and Tennis Centre, were there to capture the atmosphere and to ask the runner about his experience of sport at school.

School Reporters, Archbishop Beck Catholic College Community Sport and Tennis Centre, Liverpool, interview runner Jason Gardener ‘How did you feel when you won gold?’ School Reporters ask Jason Gardener

On Wednesday 16 June, we had a special visitor to our school tennis centre: the famous runner Jason Gardener who has won a gold and many other medals.

He is now a school sport ambassador for the Youth Sport Trust and we interviewed him about his career and National School Sports Week.

We wrote down a lot of questions to ask Jason. We also interviewed the organiser of the day, Jerry Wigglesworth, the children who took part and the coaches who helped the children with their sports.

While we were waiting to interview Jason Gardener in our state-of-the-art tennis centre, we were very nervous, yet so excited to meet and interview a gold medallist and champion!

We wrote our questions so that Jason’s answers were longer and went into more detail. Using video cameras and voice recorders, we worked as a team and asked him many questions, such as how he felt about winning the gold medal.

Child Star

We asked him about his childhood, for example: Did he have the right resources to train? Jason came back with some spectacular answers.

We asked him about the time he won the silver medal in Valencia. Jason said that that was when he made his name I personally think he is correct.

We also found out that Jason took part in many sports at school, taking advantage of the opportunities given to him in order to progress.

Jason said that, as a young child, he won his first trophy when he was in his primary school playground, running to a wall and back. He explained that during every sports day after that, there would be a lot of expectation on his shoulders, not just from his classmates but also from his parents and teachers. It was then that he knew he had a talent in this sport.

School Reporters, Archbishop Beck Catholic College Community Sport and Tennis Centre, Liverpool, interview runner Jason Gardener

Like Archbishop Beck students, Jason took part in many sports at school

When he was a teenager, he took part in many track events and then progressed into the England ranks.

Although Jason said he struggled when he became a senior in the English squad in Valencia in 1998, it was a turning point, as he won a silver medal. Then, during Olympics 2004, in Athens, he said he made his name by winning the men’s 100 metres relay!

Our Sports Day

The sports taking place in our school were athletics, tennis and volleyball. There were a lot of different schools taking part.

We asked a few children if the idea of National School Sports Week inspired them to take part more often, and they said it did.

All the children gave the same review of the day: they all enjoyed it and would like to do it again and more frequently.

The leaders helping the children really liked it too. They liked the smiles coming from the children and the fact that they all had a different experience of the same day. Everyone that took part loved it and would like to do it more often.

We asked the children if they regularly do sports after school and some of them said no. Then we asked them if they would consider doing it now, and they said yes. This day has changed a lot of people’s minds about sport.

School Reporters, Archbishop Beck Catholic College Community Sport and Tennis Centre, Liverpool, interview PE teacher

Many were in favour of more school sports days

Reporters’ reflections

This was the first time we had interviewed people and we enjoyed it too. We liked questioning all of the children and seeing what they thought of the day. We asked our PE teachers if they would like to do it again in our school, and they said yes, they would love to.

We learnt how to use a professional microphone and improved on our speaking and listening skills. We learnt that everyone has dreams and this may just be the chance to grab them and improve on them.
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