Written by Ben Cowham Year 10 Work Experience
Year 7 pupils had a visit from former GB volleyball captain Ben Pipes in their French lesson this week.
The visit was part of the Sky Sports project called Living For Sport, where selected mentors work with a group of students to help boost confidence and self-esteem.
While he was in school, Ben took the time to visit other lessons to motivate students, like Mrs Bradbury’s French class.
The Olympic champion started off the lesson by telling us that he wasn’t very good at French.
He told the students that he had to learn Spanish very fast as his coach could only speak the language, and that he also knows some other languages from various sporting encounters in his career.
The Olympian told us that languages are a massive part of his sporting career.
After Ben finished talking to the students, the French students were split into teams, and would have to pick a team leader who would have to go up to Ben and ask him some questions about his career.
The students would then have to translate the answer to make a news article.
James, a student in the lesson, said “It is strange to meet an Olympian, but it is a good thing that I can finally meet one.”
“This opportunity is really good as it makes the lesson much more enjoyable, it would be interesting if it happened more often.”
The Olympian also said “Malet Lambert has a very calm atmosphere, which can often be hard to achieve and the teachers are also really organised.”
“It is a privilege to see this, it is a phenomenal school, the staff and students should be proud of what they have achieved.”
The athlete also went around the class motivating all the students with their work and was really impressed with what he saw.
You can follow the sports mentor programme on twitter @SkySportsLFS