Last week was Lloyds TSB National School Sports Week and saw lots of action in schools right around the city, county and region. I went into Crown Hills Community College to present assemblies to three different year groups and it was clear they were enjoying the chance to do more sporting activity; with a Sport Park the staff had created proving extremely popular.

A highlight for me on Wednesday was a song by boys from Prince Edward School in Zimbabwe, visiting Leicester as part of the wonderful Connecting Classrooms project. They were great and received a standing ovation from Crown Hills Year 9’s.

I also visited Derby Moor Community College in Derby, along with retired GB badminton star, Donna Kellogg. The school has just been accepted into the Get Set Network, London 2012′s ‘club’ for schools really committed to bringing London 2012 to life for pupils, staff and community.

Derby Moor has altered its house system and all its logos and images to show its support for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and it is clear that there will be exciting benefits for pupils with the school’s curriculum and ethos changing to reflect Olympic values.

Later in the week I visited Rawlins Community College in Quorn where senior staff, encouragingly, are looking to embed London 2012 in all aspects of College life and then on Friday it was Saffron Lane and the Primary Schools Athletics event.

Saffron Lane was bathed in sunshine and the young athletes were well supported by teachers, parents and grandparents. There was some amazing talent on show, including a couple of young lads who left the rest of the field trailing in the style of Usain Bolt. Everybody seemed to be enjoying the competition; inevitably there was the odd tear as one youngster or another struggled to come to terms with losing, but maybe next time they compete they will have learned to be more philosophical about what Kipling called ‘those two imposters, winning and losing.’

My task of the day was to prepare the crowd for a mass warm up event at twenty past twelve, led by a young dance leader who had prepared a warm up to include several Olympic sports actions, like swimming and canoeing. To help get the crowd going, Loughborough College had lent me the original London 1948 Olympic Torch.

Maybe it was the magic of seeing the Torch but pretty much everybody got on their feet to join with people all around the country taking part in 3 minutes of activity at 12.20pm. Afterwards a host of people wanted to have their photo taken with the Torch and the Olympic flag, which the College had also brought along.

Today (Monday) I am heading down to London in the company of some pupils from Wreake Valley College for a visit to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) offices and then on to a tour bus taking us around the Olympic Park. I am very excited about this as you might imagine. I got to see the Park developing last August from the top of a neighbouring tower but seeing the stadium and aquatics centre close up is going to be amazing for all of us, especially the pupils I hope.

They won the trip by preparing a pre-Games Training Camp for a team from a country that does not have English as a first language. They went for Algeria and did a fine job of convincing Leicester Education Business Company and Business Language Champions (our Dragons) of their worth.

On another note, excitement and anticipation is growing for seven players from Leicester Ladies Hockey Club who will be playing down the road next week at Nottingham in the Women’s Champions Trophy, well six of them will but the seventh, Leicester manager, Sue Holwell, is taking part in a very special veterans’ commemorative match on Sunday (11th). She is in the England Wembley Legends squad to play Celtic Tigers.

The England squad contains players who trod the hallowed turf of the old Wembley in the days when hordes of screaming schoolgirls used to descend on the Twin Towers to shriek their support for England. The stadium was always full then with most girls being introduced to hockey at school. Sadly, those days are long gone, but hopefully there will be good crowds at Beeston to support England against five of the top sides in the world. You can find out more about the schedule and prices at www.wct2010.com.

Crista Cullen, Chloe Rogers, Kerry Williams, Katie Long, Hannah MacLeod and Laura Unsworth from Leicester Ladies are all in the England squad that faces Argentina at 2pm next Saturday and then they take on the world champions, Netherlands, the next day at 4pm.

There could have been greater Leicester representation in England’s 18 but Beckie Herbert is still struggling after a hip operation and both Gemma Darrington and Maddie Hinch just missed out. I do hope that there will be plenty of hockey fans from Leicester going across to cheer on England. If you do go, come along to the Fun Zone where I will be running a stall for young people, focused upon London 2012.

Despite England’s sorry exit, I have been thoroughly enjoying the quarter-finals of the World Cup, especially as they have thrown up some interesting scorelines. I was not that surprised that the excellent Dutch side managed to see off the Brazilians. Arjen Robben in particular is a top quality player. If only he did not play act so much. There was, however, no play acting when Felipe Melo stamped on him. Totally crazy. The Ghanaians may also think it crazy that they lost as they did to Uruguay. Maybe when it is absolutely obvious that a goal would have been scored had a ball not been deliberately handled on the line a penalty and a red card is not enough. Poor Gyan who had scored from the spot in previous games, he looked distraught. Uruguay kept their cool in the shootout though and the clincher from Abreu was class.

A big surprise though was Argentina’s hammering by Germany. Schweinsteiger has looked increasingly good and Klose is getting closer (get it?) to Ronaldo’s World Cup scoring record. Can he do it against Spain?

For what it’s worth I am predicting a Holland v Germany final but then again I thought this was Andy Murray’s year to win Wimbledon…