At The Japanese School in London, all of the students from the age of 6 to 15 made large posters with messages of support for all Olympic and Paralympic competitors for Japan. The messages on the posters are for each Japanese athlete.

Our national flag, called ‘The Rising Sun flag’, is in the centre of the message posters. The flag was a photo of the students wearing red and white and standing together to form the shape. The names of all the Japanese athletes are around ‘The Rising Sun flag’. Each student wrote his/her message to the athletes by hand. We want to pass on our heart-felt support messages, not only to the Japan Team as a whole, but to each individual athlete.

The Olympic committee at our school first made a list of all Japanese Olympic and Paralympic competitors. Then the name lists were divided and assigned to each of the 17 classes. The preparation made us realize just how many different kinds of Olympic and Paralympic events there are and how many Japanese athletes are taking part in the London Olympics and Paralympics.

We already knew about some famous athletes through the media, but we were able to find out a lot of more about other athletes too. Each class teacher for students in the lower year groups researched the assigned athletes. Students in the upper year groups researched the details of each athlete by themselves. After the research, each student wrote his/her own message for each athlete on the large posters.

For the duration of the Olympics, the large message posters were on the notice boards at ‘Japan House’ and the ‘Multi-support House’, where Japanese athletes go for relaxation. For the duration of the Paralympics, a poster will be on the notice board at the ‘Olympic village’. We hope our messages will encourage the success of all Japanese athletes.

Through this project, each student could learn that there are many kinds of games for the Olympics and the Paralympics and that many Japanese athletes are going to compete to the best of their ability. Writing the messages encouraged the students’ interest in the Games and made them more enthusiastic to cheer for the Japanese competitors.

Via the ‘Get Set programme’, the official London 2012 education programme, we received some free tickets for football, canoe and athletic events. Five of the nine students who got tickets for canoeing events wrote messages for the canoe athletes.

Here is a message from the student president, Takumi Yamamoto, who directed the Japanese flag school photo, taken on Sports Day.   

“The venue of the Olympic Games this summer is our city, London. We have been excited at the unique opportunity to meet a lot of top athletes coming from all over the world and to see their best performances here. As Japanese people living in London, all of us at the Japanese School in London are proud to support and cheer all the Japanese Olympic and Paralympic competitors. On our school’s Sports Day in May, we made the Japanese national flag (‘The Rising Sun flag’) with all the students (the red and white teams) standing together. We would like to pass our heart-felt messages to all Japanese competitors.

Please find information about the other Olympic projects at our school below.
http://www.thejapaneseschool.ltd.uk/nihonjingakko/page/tayori/tayori/gakkoudayori05.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2dxrWt19Y&list=UUwJXtk_1CKlCrh7YJDP2uPw&index=3&feature=plcp

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the staff of the Embassy of Japan, NAASH, JOC and JPC for their much-appreciated cooperation with our Olympic and Paralympic projects.

Yasuyuki Morita, Tomomi Tokoshima (The Japanese School in London)