Aim: To examine the positive and negative aspects of individual and team sports

Time: 20 minutes

• Groups of 5 or 6

• Paper

• Marker pens

• Kick start video and VCR

1. Ask the group to list the skills and qualities needed to be a successful member of a team or a successful individual in sport. Draw out similarities and differences. (You could be more specific - e.g. compare being a member of a basketball team with being a tennis player).

2. Ask the groups to brainstorm the positive and negative influences of sport on individuals and society and write them on large pieces of paper. Ask each group to read out their key points.

3. Show the video, using the background information on the Millennium Stars, and discuss with the group what sport, and being a member of a team, has done for these young people.

Aim: To explore teamwork and co-operation. To examine what happens when there is tension between the needs of the individual and those of the team.

Time: 25 minutes

You will need: 6 sheets of A1 paper (broadsheet newspapers will do)
Tape/CD player and music
A large space

1. Place the sheets of paper on the floor and set up the music.

2. Explain the rules to the group:

● You are in a shark-infested sea. As the music plays you swim around. When it stops go to one of the paper ‘islands’. As the game goes on some islands will disappear. You have to work together to ensure that all members of the group survive. It is dangerous to have any part of your body in the sea when the music stops. Your group leader judges whether you have survived or not.

3. Play the music. After a while stop the music and ensure that everyone has reached ‘land.’

4. Remove one of the pieces of paper and start the music again. Stop the music and see what happens. Allow a few seconds for the group to sort themselves out.

5. Continue until the group is under pressure to find space. Be ruthless - anybody not on an island has been eaten.

6. Continue until there is one island left.

7. Get the group together and discuss the following:

● What did it feel like waiting for the music to stop?

● Did anybody react selfishly to ensure his/her own survival at the expense of others?

● What did it feel like if you did not survive?

● What could the team do together that individuals couldn’t do alone?

● What does this tell us about our responsibilities to other people?

Aim: To examine the influence that sport has on individuals and society

Time: 25 minutes

You will need: Set of ‘quote’ cards (see below)

1. Give each group a set of ‘Quote’ cards. Ask them to read each one aloud and discuss what it means.

2. Ask them to decide whether each quote is commenting on how sport affects a team (community, country, etc) or an individual and place it in the appropriate column.

3. When they are happy with their decisions they look at other groups’ charts to discover similarities / differences.

4. Conclude by deciding:

● Which quote each person liked best or thought was the most important

● Whether the positive effects of sport outweigh the negative

● Which is more important - individual achievement or team success?

To use: photocopy and cut into cards

Soccer for Peace changed my life 100%. If I didn’t have soccer I’d still be living off crime. Jairo Baus, team coach, Colombia

Football joins people together everywhere in the world. Sport has a much more direct effect than any other political event. George Weah, Liberian footballer

Having stars from around the world playing in Britain teaches respect for other cultures and other people.
Errol Cousins, Commission for Racial Equality

Training and football was precisely my route out of the rough area where I grew up. Pat Creedon, charity worker

Football is one of the best vehicles for reconciliation as it allows youngsters from both sides of the divide to unite for at least 90 minutes.
John Barnes, football manager

All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.
Albert Camus, novelist and philosopher

I love team sports and I love playing football for the real sense of belonging to something. Linda Bush, Stockport Celtic Ladies Football Club

Football is a part of I: When I play the world wakes up around me.
Bob Marley, musician

The politics I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.
Bill Shankly, football manager

As a real instrument of reconciliation sport brings people together ... the ideals of fair play, honesty, friendship, collaboration and mutual respect are the building blocks of a new civilization of peace. Pope John Paul II