KEY INFORMATION

Recommended age group: 5–11
Time required: one 45–60 minute session
Equipment: Living the Values helping others, Olympic and Paralympic Values resources (optional).


ACTIVITY IDEA

  1. Take a look through the Living the Values helping others presentation or Celebrating Rio assembly slides, which contain useful images and information that you can use as a whole class stimulus.
  2. Talk about the huge numbers of volunteers that were need to make the Rio 2016 Games and the London 2012 Games such a success.
  3. Have a whole class discussion about what it means to volunteer and ask the children to share their own experiences of occasions they have given up their free time to help other people at home, at school or in the community, e.g. as part of a group such as Brownies, Cubs, Guides and Scouts or as play leaders/ buddies, etc.
  4. Make a class list of the kinds of things the children could help with at home (chores, helping to look after a younger sibling, visiting an elderly relation, etc) and at school (tidying the classroom, helping younger children at play and lunch times, making something for a shared area such as a display, volunteering to become a playground buddy or play leader, etc).
  5. Working in small teams (even a team of two) the children decide how they could help at home, at school or in the community and set themselves a goal, e.g. a certain number of hours or a project to complete by a given date.
  6. Teams can use the ‘Living the Values, helping others’ activity sheet to plan, review and record their volunteering challenge.
  7. They could add up their volunteering time as a team, i.e. if individuals helped at home, they add all their times to the record sheet, combining them to reach a team total. Why not add all the team totals together to arrive at a whole class total?

DIFFERENTIATION

For younger children it may be more appropriate and achievable for them to concentrate on helping others at school or at home for a short period of time, while older children could extend their volunteering ideas to the wider local community over a longer time, for example as members of an organised community group, such as Cubs or Brownies or as part of a young leadership programme.

EXTENSION

If you would like the children to consider in greater depth how good teams work, before they begin their own team challenge, work through the ideas in the ‘What makes an effective team?’ lesson and complete the ‘What makes an effective team?’ activity sheet.

Teams could research and find a local charity/ volunteer group they might like to help with on a more regular basis or during their school holidays.