THE SIERRA SUR OLYMPICS
Every year Sierra Sur holds Olympic games in which the students participate through various manners. Of course, the main aspect of the games involves a sports competition between different teams created by the Physical Education teachers at the school. Instead of having competitions between countries, our Olympic games is between different continents where a third-party continent serves as the referee for each game played. Students also participate by preparing presentations in their other classes that are displayed around the school during the Olympic games which involves some sort of mixture between the Olympics and the class content. The Sierra Sur Olympic games have an initiation ceremony in which the director of the school speaks at as well as some other chosen students with prepared speeches. The games typically last two days and require participation from all students in some way. At the end of the games, the results are announced and the students are given participation certificates created by the language assistant.
This page is dedicated to allowing the auxiliares to share their personal experiences with the games as well as share general information about the games and the people that were involved the year that they were in attendance.
THE SIERRA SUR OLYMPICS OF 2023
OLYMPICS INITIATION CEREMONY
The games started off with all of the students getting lineup up in the open courtyard in front of the school behind their continent's flag. Each continent had their own flag designed by students that was a mixture of different flags of the countries within those continents. The students had also made individual hand-held paper flags for the members of the team to carry as they went into the ceremony, so I was helping pass those flag out to the students before they made their way to the tennis courts behind the school. At the back of the pack, a few students along with the Carlos, the Technology teacher, carried this insanely cool paper mache torch. There was some ceremonial background music playing as everyone walked up that gave the whole situation a more realistic Olympic feeling.
Once everyone was lined up again in the tennis courts, the background music stopped and Pablo, the music teacher, and the students near him played some tune (that I assume is probably Olympic-related) and it was pretty cool to watch. I had classes with pretty much every class throughout the week, but there were some students that I obviously didn't get to see in certain classes before. So it was nice seeing some of the work that the students I see in History class are doing in their music class to prepare for the games. I had seen some of the 1 ESO students practicing with Pablo the week before something for the Olympics, so I remember wondering when they would perform too.
After the band was finished, there were a few speeches planned before the games were to start. Firstly, the director of our school Marco Maldonado Ferrete gave a speech, and then after a student from my 4C Emeka gave a speech in English about the games. I appreciated that there was some nod to English for the games and Emeka has excellent pronunciation so I was definitely impressed. Then as we were about to start, Javi, a student from one of my 2 ESO classes, asked if he could say something and Marco invited him to the microphone. Javi went on to say how proud he was of Sierra Sur for executing such an amazing event and thanking everyone who was participating. I think that was a perfect way for us to start off the games honestly because it gave everyone the push to get excited for the next few days to come.
THE CONTINENT FLAGS
These are all the flags that were designed this year by the students for the games and what continent each flag represents.
ASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
OCEANIA
AMERICA
2023 OLYMPIC GAMES ITINERARIES
These are the itineraries that the students followed for each category and what team was needed to referee each game. There were a group of students that sat behind the sound system and controlled the music as well as announced when each game was going to happen and who needed to be there.
THE COMPETITION
The Olympics consisted of 4 different sports (as seen above in the itineraries) with women's and men's teams for each one. The teams were a mixture of students from different grades and different classes. I was able to watch a few games for each sport throughout the two days, but since I love soccer, I think I ended up watching more soccer than the other sports. But it was fun to see everyone in their team colors playing sports in the Spanish sun and the fun music playing through the speakers to keep the event even more lively. I think one thing that could have made the competition just that much better would have been a teacher's competition at the end, but I hope next year they might incorporate that into the games.
Like I mentioned before, there was a group of students who were playing music for the games and
announcing when each of the games were and who needed to be there. These students were called the "press" since they announced everything and kept everyone up with what was happening. Most of the time that I was at the Olympics, I hung around them and watched the games. It was fun watching them enjoy themselves so much and dance around to their favorite music.
CERTIFICATES FOR PARTICIPATION
I was asked to make this year's certificate for participation in the Olympics, so this is the certificate that I ended up designing for the students. I printed them out, cut them, and organized them all for each class. The gym teachers then went through and took out those who had not participated and those who had received their award in their homeroom or tutoría class.
OTHER TASKS
The Olympics aren't just about the competition, in fact, there were a lot of other contributions to the games that had nothing to do with the games themselves. The bilingual Math and History classes displayed presentations that related their content to the Olympics in some way. While I wasn't as involved with the Math presentation displays, I did contribute quite a bit to the History presentations due to the fact that everything was written in English. I went through about 40 or so and made corrections to the English while Pilar, the History teacher, went through and checked the accuracy of the information. Later on in class, I was able to watch the students actually present their slides and it was nice that I got to see how comfortable the students felt doing a presentation in English and how it compared to the English they had originally put on the slides. Overall I thought it was awesome that other classes were contributing to the games through other manners but still focusing on the content they need to learn in their classes.
INTERVIEWS
In addition to the tasks that the History classes and Math classes did, some students also conducted interviews with some of the teachers in the school by asking them questions about their opinions
towards certain sports in the games. I hadn't seen these previous to the games, but I'm very glad I got the opportunity to look at them after because I learned more about the teachers around school and I got to see the students' practice with English.
Here are the links to each of the interviews:
CLOSING CEREMONY
I sadly wasn't able to witness the closing ceremony because I was already done with work for the day by the time that the games were coming to a close. However, I was able to see a lot of videos and pictures from the closing ceremony. The pictures and videos show giving out the medals and prizes to the groups that won in the various competitions, but I think my favorite video was of all of the students (and some staff) slowly join in on a dance. I had seen Yoly and some other students practice this dance earlier in the day but I wasn't sure if it was for something or if they were just wanting to dance in general. Anyway, I think prizes and medals are always exciting, yet I think the most important part about an event like this is that everyone has fun and isn't afraid to goof off a bit. I think this video perfectly incapsulates that. I hope that the future language assistants are able to see more of the games than I was able to because it was such a well-organized event, so much effort went into making the games happen, and it was the perfect opportunity for the students to just have fun and appreciate being in each other's presence. If you want to see the video of everyone dancing, here is a link. Enjoy :)
THE SIERRA SUR OLYMPICS OF 2024
The Olympics consisted of 4 different sports (as seen above in the itineraries) with women's and men's teams for each one. The teams were a mixture of students from different grades and different classes. I was able to watch a few games for each sport throughout the two days, but since I love soccer, I think I ended up watching more soccer than the other sports. But it was fun to see everyone in their team colors playing sports in the Spanish sun and the fun music playing through the speakers to keep the event even more lively. I think one thing that could have made the competition just that much better would have been a teacher's competition at the end, but I hope next year they might incorporate that into the games.
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