MATRAVERS School’s Ellie Osborne admitted all the hard work was certainly worth it after her extracurricular efforts were rewarded by London 2012 gold medallist Ed McKeever.

Osborne was one of the star attractions at the University of Exeter’s Great Hall as over 100 young legacy leaders took centre stage to celebrate and showcase their fantastic work on the Get Set to Make a Change programme since October last year.

The Get Set to Make a Change programme, funded by the Big Lottery Fund, saw youngsters keep the spirit of London 2012 alive with 15-year-old Osborne and Matravers School certainly doing that by fulfilling a pledge to encourage primary school students to get involved with sport.

Their hard work didn’t go unnoticed with sprint canoeist McKeever and retired Paralympic 2012 gold medal-winning adaptive rower Naomi Riches, handing Matravers School an award to commemorate the youngsters’ efforts at a red carpet event.

“It’s been really fun doing the programme. Our pledge was to inspire younger primary school students from our local area to carry on the Olympic legacy through Olympic-style activities,” said Osborne.

“We based the whole thing on a Road to Rio activity day doing athletic events. We had 120 pupils involved from our local primary schools.

“I learned a lot of leadership skills and how to organise events for younger students.

“Meeting Ed and Naomi was really inspirational and gave us ideas about what to do next.

“We’ve been hearing from other schools too about what they’ve been doing and going through our journey and what we can do next.”

McKeever said: “The London 2012 Games is still very fresh in everyone’s minds and probably even more so if you talk to the kids, they are not going to forget it in a hurry either.

“I have very fond memories from London 2012 and it’s probably the same for the majority of people in Britain so it’s great to see the young guys all so enthusiastic still.”

  • Through GSTMC, the British Olympic Foundation, in conjunction with the British Paralympic Association is using the spirit of the London Games to re-inspire young people across the UK. The project is being supported by a £2.5m grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Keeping the Spirit of 2012 Alive campaign. http://www.makeachange.org.uk/

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