Our featured Star School is...
Biggar High School, South Lanarkshire
Visited by Orienteering Champion Tessa Hill
Everyone thinks that all you need to do to become
a champion is to be good at something for example people think that if you are
good at running you will win a race.
Unfortunately this isn’t all you need to be a champion.
Through the “Champions in schools” programme we
learnt about the other things you need to be a champion.The champion who came to speak to us was Tessa
Hill who who has represented Great Britain at
junior and senior level in Orienteering. Through her 3
lessons with us, Tessa taught us about all the things we need to have to be
successful in anything we want to do, not just in sport.
In lesson 1 our targets were discussed and they
could have been targets which took weeks to complete such as win first prize in
a competition or targets which take years to complete such as becoming a
doctor. As long as the targets were
SMART then they could be done. A SMART
target is a target which is able to be measured, achievable, able to be
completed in a time limit and the target must be connected to you.
In week 2, Tessa spoke to us more about what it
really takes to be a champion. She
talked about what it really means to have a balanced lifestyle and the
importance of taking part in regular physical activity. True fitness is about having a healthy
lifestyle that works for you. She asked
each pupil to keep a diary of a positive meal or snack choice, positive
hydration and physical activity everyday for 3 weeks.
In week 3 Tessa spoke to us about winning
attitudes. It is about using your mind
to your advantage. What really makes a
good athlete is a positive attitude.
Some attitudes a champion will use are motivation, determination, self
belief, focus and effort.
Every week Tessa taught us some tips about how to
become better and even taught some students how to start orienteering. She taught us not just how to avoid obstacles but
how to power through them and in week two we built up our physical fitness by
completing an orienteering circuit using a map and completing different
activities. In the third week we put all
of our winning attitudes into practice and tried a real orienteering
course.
Written by Laura Neville and Lauren Wallace
