As the Paralympics came to a spectacular end at the weekend, eight pupils from Dyke House School, in Hartlepool , shared the excitement in London while acting as volunteers. One of them, Millie Dawkins, kept a diary of a special five days

YEAR ten pupils from Dyke House School had a hectic few days helping at the London 2012 Paralympics as part of a scheme run by the Get- Set Foundation.

Day One

Robyn Ingram, Paige Cain-Richardson, Gabby Hudson, Jonathon Mee, Mitchell Rookes, Alan Harrison, Jack Gibson and myself had waited for this morning for a very long time. We finally got to London to be part of the Paralympics after a lot of planning – and a 6.30am start.

In our red tracksuits, we collected our passes for the Olympic Park. I will cherish the pass forever and remember my trip when I look at it. It’s a great souvenir.

It had been such a long day and a late night, but it was the start of our trip and I couldn’t wait for the next day to be involved.

Day Two

We had to wake up extremely early to get ready for our first shift, so we were sitting on the Tube barely awake.

We arrived at Westfield, in Stratford, which is a big shopping centre, but didn’t have time for any shopping as we had to start our first day working at the Great British Gardens on the Olympic site.

Before I knew it, my teacher and I were walking past the Olympic Stadium on our way to the gardens. I could hear the cheers coming from the stadium. I personally found it breathtaking and had to fight to hold back some tears so I didn’t look too silly walking around the park crying.

The gardens were absolutely gorgeous! Full of colourful flowers and different coloured plants.

We worked hard all day with our activities, such as face painting, world maps for people to write messages on and a large board game.

The gardens became more busy at about 1pm once the athletics had finished, so our activities became a lot more popular then.

Day Three

We had an afternoon shift, so in the morning we saw some of the sights. We changed from our normal clothes into our work gear at the Olympic Park and swapped a couple of our activities to give ourselves some variety.

We had very long queues for our face painting, with many people wanting the Union flag painted on their cheeks. And it wasn’t just young children. Many older people wanted something painted as well. After our shift, we decided to have a look around the Olympic Park.

There were lots of places hidden away that we didn’t know about. On our way out of the park, we stopped to watch some of the street bands that were playing – they were all so good.

Day Four

We were so excited to actually be sitting in the stadium watching the athletics. It was weird to think that everything we had been watching on the TV over the summer was actually going to be in front of our eyes.

We found our seats, right above where the Olympic flame was, and watched lots of races.

By far the most wonderful was the blind long jump.

When I first heard about the event, I wondered how it would work? Now it is something I would like to try with a friend in a PE class.

We left the stadium before the athletics finished so we could change into our work clothes again and start our activities.

We had a large map of the world made out of a material which you could write on, and lots of people wrote messages on the map from wherever they were from in the world.

Day Five

It was sad that it would be our last shift. It was the last time we would be in the Olympic Park and was even hotter than previous days.

It was another early morning and I could feel myself getting very tired during work. As we walked out of the Great British Gardens for the last time, we knew it was time for a group photo with the other school we had become so close to during the past four days.