Happy 1st Birthday Mandeville

To celebrate its first birthday (19 May), London 2012 Paralympic Games mascot Mandeville today invited a group of school children involved in the Get Set network – the official London 2012 education programme - to a special birthday party in central London.

Since its arrival on the scene last year Mandeville, whose name is taken from Stoke Mandeville, the hospital which inspired a forerunner for the Paralympic Games, has attended more than 200 events across the UK together with Wenlock the London 2012 Olympic Mascot.

One of Mandeville’s next public appearances is at the BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester which starts on Monday (23 May).

In addition to public appearances Mandeville is extremely popular online starring in an animated film which can be viewed at www.london2012.com/mascots and www.youtube.com/london2012.

Over 5,000 people follow Mandeville’s every move on www.facebook.com/iammandeville and www.twitter.com/iammandeville and an interactive computer game which allows users to customise and create their own version of Mandeville with different clothes and sports equipment has proven particularly popular.

Mandeville has also been giving a helping hand to teachers and pupils in schools across the UK featuring on a range of new resources available to schools through the London 2012 education programme. Assembly packs and activity sheets have been made available to the 18,000 schools which are registered with Get Set to help support teaching and learning across the curriculum, with a particular focus on literacy and the Paralympic Values in primary schools.

Many teachers have used Mandeville as the basis of projects and activities which demonstrate a commitment to the Paralympic Values to earn the school an allocation of tickets to the Paralympic Games through the London 2012 Ticketshare scheme.