LONDON –

Near the entrance of York High School in northern England, painted in large letters, are the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." It is not a bad motto, particularly for a school that prides itself on its sporting prowess. Along all the corridors and outside each of the classrooms are images of sportsmen and women, many of them famous Olympians. At the start of every lesson, whether it be mathematics or PE, the state school's 800 pupils are set three targets; gold, silver and bronze. "We really try to incorporate the ethos of the Olympics into every aspect of school life," says the head teacher, David Ellis.

Tennyson's concluding line from his poem "Ulysses" was also the one chosen by David Cameron to encapsulate the Olympic spirit in his speech welcoming athletes from across the world to London on July 26 last year. "It's this spirit that is going to shine out from London," Cameron declared. "We want this to be the games that lifts up a city, that lifts up our country."

Ellis and his pupils still feel "lifted up" by London 2012. In the sports hall, PE teacher Chris Shouksmith is teaching an enthusiastic group of year seven girls how to play badminton and, as they bash the shuttlecocks from end to end, it is obvious they are enjoying every minute. The school, opened in 2007 as a specialist sports college, appoints young sport "ambassadors" as team leaders. Beth Johnson, 14, is one. "I nearly cried when Jessica Ennis won the gold," she says. "And the fact that she comes from Yorkshire made it even better. I always wanted to be a PE teacher. Now I want to be an Olympic athlete." Another, Charlie Squires, also 14, articulates the wider benefits of sport with the wisdom of one much older. "If you are confident in your physical self it helps you feel confident and positive in all other ways," he says.