When the date for the first Who Do We Think We Are? Week was announced earlier this year many teachers wrote to me asking why we had chosen the dates 23-28 June 2008. Several went on to enquire why WDWTWA Week wasn't linked to St George's Day (23rd April).

This year the start of WDWTWA Week coincides with Olympic Day (23rd June 2008) and this was deliberately chosen because many of the core aims of Olympic Day are closely associated with the aims of Who Do We think We Are?

For example: Three educational aims behind school participation in Olympic Day are:

• To focus attention on the attainment of personal excellence for all students.
• To provide a culminating opportunity for cross-curricular activities.
• To form a school-wide event, based on an Olympic theme, emphasising co-operation, participation and fair play.

During Who Do We Think We Are? Week schools are encouraged to facilitate "...investigations and celebrations ...of pupils' histories and their community's roots and of the national and global links that they can make" and provide innovative teaching and learning opportunities structured around the four, cross-curricular WDWTWA themes:

• School and community
• Relationships, belonging and faith
• History and settlement
• ‘Britishness', national identity/values and the 2012 Games.
  

Shared values, co-operation and active participation are emphasised in both events and this enables schools to link their planning and delivery for WDWTWA and Olympic Day in a seamless way.

The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) are committed to funding Who Do we Think We Are? Week until at least 2010 so there will be opportunities to review the timing of the event and consider alternative dates - including a link with St George's Day (23rd April).