Diary of a Head
The Norwegians are coming... F
riday, July 27. Where were you at 20:12? Me? Well, I was standing in the Olympic Park with 249 other schools as they
formed a children’s Guard of Honour for the athletes as they walked from the Park into the Stadium for The Show of Shows.
Like every other school in the country we joined
the Get Set campaign. However, which team would we choose to support? There were only 204 to pick from. How about Kenya? We have a strong link with our partner school out there, but then so does every school in the borough. We huffed and we puffed until we decided upon Norway because of the strong educational grounds of, er, they have an almost demonic passion for sailing and, coincidentally, all the Olympic sailing events were about to take place two miles from our school – surely they might just visit us? After all, one of the earliest references of Portland in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles is of a Viking ship coming in for a bit of murder and pillage. It also helped that I have family out there and I can personally confi rm that they do love sailing – having experienced a fjord in gale force 7. We learned about things Norwegian, but at times it seemed like stereotype’s syndrome: yes they eat elk, they’re good at winter sports, they have mad football commentators, and they give us an annual gift of a Christmas tree for Trafalgar Square.
Two Olympic Norwegian windsurfers duly came to visit our school. The staff loved them, with oxygen having to be supplied to some ladies. We performed a whole-school human Norwegian fl ag; all that was needed was some mug to go 23 metres up in a cherry-picker to photograph it! Prohibiting camera shake due to knocking knees proved my Olympic challenge that day. However, the learning went sky high when
we were invited to support team Norway in the Guard of Honour on July 27.
The invitation made it quite clear: we would not be in the Stadium, we would miss everything that went on in the biggest show on Earth, we would be there, but not quite there, we would be outside. One billion people might see it all, but not us. We would have to be there from 2pm until 11pm, whooping and cheering all 2,500 athletes as they proceeded from the Park to the Stadium. Only eight pupils could be chosen and you had to make a banner to support your country. I went to my headteacher colleagues for advice, particularly with the risk assessment from Hades. “Don’t touch it with a bargepole,” was one piece of guidance. We set off at 7am on our way to the Big Smoke.
We shared a coach with a local secondary school who supported Germany. As HGVs passed us on the motorway I received several amorous winks from their drivers. At the service station
Stuart Mcleod takes his pupils to see the greatest show on earth – well to stand outside at least…
I discovered the reason; a large sign in the back window reading “Honk If Your Horny!”. At 5pm we met in Copper Box, the Handball
Arena, for tea (including a lovely salmon option). Everything went according to plan, until some bright spark decided to whoop the kids up to gas mark 6 and get them all to do a Mexican Wave; all very well until several shoals of sodden sockeye showered the vacant court below. I just wonder whether some Angolan or Russian players the following morning questioned if this might really be the Aquatics Centre. By 7.30pm we were in position, until we were
moved, four times. The athletes appeared on cue and some talked with the children. The Japanese, Kiribati, Mexican and Nigerian teams were delightful and signed our Norwegian banner. By the time our Nordic cousins came they
had good reason to be confused with a Viking ship resplendent with Japanese characters. Team GB were brilliant. Etienne Stott duly signed the children’s clothes and arms. That night he was unknown; a few days later he became a gold medallist. We arrived home the following day at 5am. We never did see Elizabeth, David, Rowan, Paul or Danny in The Show but we did meet Yumi, Novak, Raul, Jannicke, Sebastian and er, some awfully nice Usain chap. Some school trip!
sbmcleod@sky.com
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