Olympic Values Education Programme

The Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP) is a database of free and accessible teaching resources created by the International Olympic Committee that teacher's, coaches and other mentors can implement within their classes. The Programme uses typical Olympic sports and history along with the core principles of Olympism, excellence, friendship and respect, to allow students the experience of values-based learning and to assume the responsibilities of global citizenship.

Video obtained from: https://www.olympic.org/olympic-values-and-education-program

The programmes main aim is to build a better world through sport by using the teaching of sport to focus on building important life-long values

OVEP follows the main theme that 'learning involves the whole body, not only the mind' and uses specific sport traditions and values to encourage students to live healthy lives.

In addition, OVEP acts as a supplement to many existing educational materials that can aid in improving overall academic performance.

Some of the main objectives and themes include:

• experiencing the Joy of effort
• learning to Play Fair
• practising Respect for oneself and others
• pursuit of Excellence
• living a Harmonious and Balanced Life of Body, Will and Mind
• promoting respect for cultural diversity
  
• promoting civil responsibility
  

Info graphic summarizing the OVEP obtained from: https://www.olympic.org/olympic-values-and-education-program

The Olympic adventure is an interactive classroom activity put out through the OVEP that allows and encourages students to participate in sports and collaborate as a class to reach common goals. The program includes digital and in class material and also gives students the opportunity to increase global awareness.

This program incorporates global perspectives into almost every subject and and grade level within the curriculum. The toolkit provides a very helpful chart that classifies each of the activities provided in the tool kit with a specific subject and teaching method. It also relates it to the all together olympic theme. Using this chart it is simple to relate activities to overall and specific curriculum expectations.

The activity sheets also include very in depth sections on how to adapt each activity for each grade level or modify the activity within the classroom. This makes the program super applicable to a variety of grade levels and classrooms and again makes it easy to match with specific or overall expectations.

Since the activities in the kit cover such a wide variety of subjects we have provided a portion of the activity chart and chosen one activity to provide as example in the space below as to how it is connected to the intermediate Ontario curriculum.

Above: Examples of activities and subjects they related to obtained from the OVEP Tool Kit.

Below: Overall expectation found within the Grade 8 Physical Education Curriculum that relates to the above activity.

Many of the activities provided within the toolkit contain excellent assessment ideas that can be incorporated within the program or as a summative assessment for the program as a whole. Some of these include:

Artwork

- Creating a piece of artwork the embodies the ideals of Olympism

- Creating a logo or mascot for a specific Olympic games and including what it symbolizes

- Designing an olympic stadium, village or event grounds

Writing

- Writing a piece on the values of Olympism and how they can be applied to daily life

- Writing letters to Olympic athletes as a class about why they are inspired by some of the values they see within them

- A report on a specific counties Olympic program and history

Other

- Interviewing an athlete and writing an article based on their interview

- Setting up a class Olympics or school Olympics as a group

The OVEP has many benefits but also a few challenges to overcome. We have listed them in the space below:

“The Olympic Values Education Programme” International Olympic Committee, 26 Mar. 2017, www.olympic.org/olympic-values-and-education-program.

International Olympic Committee (2016) The Fundamentals of Olympic Values Education

International Olympic Committee (2016) Delivering OVEP

International Olympic Committee (2016) OVEP Activity Sheets Complete

Ontario Ministry of Education (2015). The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1 - 8: Health and Physical Education