If you have watched a skill video on this site, you have already met the skippers of Moseley Primary School. The children doing the double bounce, the crossover, the crougar and the Double Dutch in the skip-hop skills video are Moseley pupils. This is the story of how a Staffordshire primary school went from its first skipping workshop to a skills video used in schools across the UK and Ireland, and then onto CBBC.
A whole-school skipping day
Like many School Sport Partnerships at the time, East Staffordshire decided to roll out skip-hop in its schools, and Moseley Primary School was one of them. skip-hop ran a full day of workshops for every age and every class, finishing with a show in front of the whole school.
The day went down a treat. The children went crazy for skipping, and the head teacher saw the benefits straight away and got behind it. Soon the playground was full of children skipping every lunchtime.
A festival, not a competition
With East Staffordshire School Sport Partnership, skip-hop then ran a skipping festival. Every school in the area had time to prepare teams and bring them to a competition day, but the emphasis was on taking part, not winning, which is why it was called a festival.
The day showed how far the children had come with one workshop and some practice. For Moseley’s skippers it was the start of something: they wanted more skipping and more skip-hop.
Making the skip-hop skills video
Working with the School Sport Partnership, skip-hop decided to make a skipping tutorial DVD that schools could use to teach skipping. We wanted children to show the skills, because seeing someone their own age do a trick is what makes a child keep practising. Who better to ask than Moseley?
The Moseley skippers had another four hours of intensive training. A small group of them then practised and recorded the skip-hop DVD. It went first to every school in the partnership, then to schools all over the UK and Ireland as a resource for teachers and pupils. Moseley became one of the best-known skipping schools in the country.
That same footage is the skip-hop skills video on this site today. We have cleaned it up and cut it into one clip per skill, with slow motion and feet close-ups, so a new generation of children can learn from the Moseley skippers. You can see it on the skip-hop Skills pages, from the double bounce to Double Dutch.
On to CBBC Jump Nation
In 2009 the BBC began making Jump Nation, a CBBC series in which teams of four children aged 9 to 13 competed with skipping routines set to music. Each week the judges set harder compulsory moves, the teams were trained by some of the best skippers in the world, and one team left the competition. The prize was a trip to America.
When the BBC asked skip-hop to recommend a team, it didn’t take us long to think of Moseley. The school took up the challenge with its usual can-do attitude, and four of the skippers from the DVD started training straight away as the team Pump It.
The series started on CBBC in January 2010. Pump It made it through the heats, Jump Camp, the Jump Academy and the Double Dutch round of Jump Academy Pro, and into the televised Jump Nation Stadium shows. Highlights included a Chinese wheel in their first routine, a leapfrog into Double Dutch that they kept trying until it worked, and a “mirror image” routine with a mirrored side swing in and out of a crougar. Making it that far against teams from all over the country was a huge achievement, and the whole school could be very proud of them.
What Moseley taught us
Moseley amazed all of us at skip-hop with their ability to learn, their willingness to try new things and their can-do attitude. A head teacher who backed skipping, staff who kept it going after the workshop and children who practised every lunchtime turned one skipping day into a festival, a skills video and a place on national television.
That is still what skip-hop is built for: a starting point a school can run with. The Skipping Awards give every pupil the next skill to aim for, the scheme of work takes a school from Reception to Year 6, and the free Virtual Skipping League gives every class a competition to train for. If your school wants to be the next Moseley, start here.