Skipping increases Physical Activity levels

Dan the Skipping man came into Brookside to lead a skipping day for all children in Years 1, 2, 3 and 4.  Children had the opportunity to learn about the importance of physical exercise and raising their heart rate.  Dan spoke about how easy it was for children to skip in their back garden or outside the front of their house as well as on the playground.  Dan was joined by another coach Sophie who taught the children some basic skipping moves as well as some tricks and spoke about the muscle groups that the different tricks exercises.

It was clear during the session that some children made a lot of progress during the session, particularly some pupils who were not competent skippers before.  A lunchtime training session was spent with the MDSAs with activities for children to do during lunchtimes and also games to play with the large skipping ropes.  A further session was spent with Sophie working with our Change4Life club and the club leader looking at activities which they could do.  Many of the club members appeared in the show at the end of the day.  Skipping has now become a key part of the Change4Life Club.

Since the Skipping Day the amount of skipping on the playground has increased, aided by the MDSAs leading and further developing the pupils skipping skills.  The class teachers have also used the skipping rope class pack which we have in school, both during PE lessons but also as an active break during the school day, for some classes this has happened each week since the skipping workshops, sometimes using the YouTube videos which have five minutes of skipping on.