Skipping festivals 2007/08

In 2006, Skipping Workshops piloted the idea of a series of regional skipping

festivals. Following the success of these we are hoping to arrange a series of similar events in 2007/08 and would like to invite you to consider hosting such an event.

The common theme of these festivals is the gathering together of children from a number of local schools for a day of skipping. If your school hosted a festival it would be expected to give the use of the hall for the whole day. Attendance at such festivals varies enormously, but with a minimum of 60 children; the host school would be expected to provide 50% of the children, with the other 50% coming from other local schools. The cost of the day is £4 per child. There are three different types of festival:

The teaching festival: 

Children would be expected to be ready for a mass warm up at 9.30 a.m. Thereafter, the day is broken into four sessions, covering individual skills development, partner skipping, long rope games and double dutch skipping, with each of the sessions lasting between 45 and 60 minutes. The festival finishes at around 3.00 p.m.

The display festival:

Most of the day is similar to the teaching festival, except that the teaching sessions finish an hour earlier, at 2.00 p.m. After a short break, each of the participating schools present a short display of skipping for the rest of the group. This is often done to music with some element of choreography and, usually, some synchronised skipping. The school-displays usually last between 2 and 5 minutes.

The competition festival.

The morning session is taken up with teaching sessions, as described above. In the afternoon is a competition based on the ‘National Skipping Challenge’. Children taking part would be expected to be able to have a go at crossovers, pretzels and double unders. The afternoon ends with a presentation of the cup to the overall winner.

A few points to consider; the teaching festival is recommended for schools who are new, or relatively new, to skipping. One advantage of this model is that there is no preparation needed prior to the day. The display festival is popular because it gives children a chance to perform in public in front of a large audience; however, it does involve some preparation and rehearsal before the day. The competition festival is for schools with a longer tradition of skipping and where a competitive ethos is encouraged.

If you are interested in hosting such a festival any time in 2007/8 please get in touch so we can discuss mutually convenient dates and venues.

Some information about recent festivals is posted on the home page of our website.