WWW.SKIPPING.GOV.IM

	Thank you to the Isle of Man Anti Cancer Association for helping to fund the visits from Skipping Workshops UK, and provision of ropes to schools; and Skimmee Gien Mie for their support with the skipping programme over the few years.

Welcome to www.skipping.gov.im!

...Blue and White Rope Skippers at Cronk y Berry School...

Celebration of Skipping 2009

The third annual Celebration of Skipping was held on the 26th June at Cronk y Berry School in Douglas. This year’s event was bigger and better than ever, with some fantastic freestyle routines put together from skipping teams from Arbory, St Johns, Peel Clothworkers, Rushen, Fairfield and of course hosts Cronk y Berry School, who showcased skipping demonstrations from Key Stage One and Key Stage Two children.

All schools and guests were greeted by children from Cronk y Berry, and were served fruit and water snacks, kindly donated by Tesco and Shoprite, to continue the Healthy Futures theme.

The audience were treated to a spectacle of different styles of skipping from each team including single rope synchronised skipping, double dutch, Chinese wheel and gymnastic skipping. All the teams interpreted the creative skipping challenge in a unique and exciting way, and managed to skip with a mixture of concentration and smiles.

The morning also included the prize giving for the Manx Skipping Challenge scoreboard for school year 2008/2009, supported and presented by the Isle of Man Anti Cancer Association.

The winners were:

Key Stage 1

Category	Winner	School	Score
Continuous Crossovers	Gemma Kirkham	Cronk y Berry	288
Pretzels	Katy Gillam	Arbory School	112
Face to Face	Alicia Oates & Alex Drowley	Sulby School	2164
Double Unders	Ella Clague	Arbory School	76
Double Dutch	Alicia Oates	Sulby School	446
Keep the Pot Boiling	Cronk y Berry Team	Cronk y Berry	751

Key Stage 1

Category	Winner	School	Score
Backwards Skipping	Abigail Coulthard	Arbory School	446
One foot Skipping	Jody Thompson	Cronk y Berry	61
Long Rope Skipping	Charlotte White	Cronk y Berry	122
Butterfly Skipping	Olivia Davin and Amy Convery	Cronk y Berry	20

Overall School Achievement Award: Sulby School

The event was closed with a professional skipping demonstration from the Blue and White Rope Skippers from the UK, who inspired the pupils with an awesome and high impact skipping routine.

The Celebration of Skipping and Manx Skipping Challenge are partnerships between DHSS, Public Health Directorate, Skimmee Gien Mie and Department of Education, and the Isle of Man Anti Cancer Association. Thanks to all at Cronk y Berry School for their help, and to all school pupils and staff who attended to make it the successful day it was.

The Manx Skipping Challenge - and Top 3 in 2008/2009 for each Category

Continuous crossovers - Minimum 40 skips

As the rope goes over the head, stretch to cross arms straight in front of the body. Jump through the loop created by crossing the arms. Continue to jump through the loop with arms crossed.

Manx Record - 566

Name	Age	School	Date	Number of Skips
Gemma Kirkham	Year 5	Cronk y Berry	10/11/08	288
Gemma Kirkham	Year 5	Cronk y Berry	26/09/08	284

Click here for the full leaderboard

Pretzels - Minimum 30 skips

Skip with the rope under one leg, and the other leg bent with the hand nearest the bent leg underneath and the rope out at the side. In effect, skipping with one leg to balance, and one arm under non supporting leg.

Manx Record - 128

Name	Age	School	Date	Number of Skips
Katy		Arbory School	09/03/09	112
Lauren Wright	Year 6	Cronk Y Berry	18/03/09	48
Meghan Pilley	Year 4	Cronk y Berry	19/01/09	39

Click here for the full leaderboard

Face-to-face Partner Skips - Minimum 50 skips

One person turns the rope while the partner and rope turner jump in time with one another.

Manx and British Record - 2164

Name	Age	School	Date	Number of Skips
Alicia Oates and Alex Drowley		Sulby School	13/01/09	2164 (British and Manx Record)
Gemma Kirkham and Leanne Costa	Year 5	Cronk y Berry	10/11/08	281
Lauren Wright and Jessica Marsay	Year 6	Cronk y Berry	18/03/09	115

Click here for the full leaderboard

Double Unders - Minimum 10 skips

The rope goes under the skippers feet twice on one jump.

Manx Record - 76

Name	Age	School	Date	Number of Skips
Ella Clague	Year 5	Arbory School	09/03/09	76
Lauren Wright	Year 6	Cronk y Berry	19/01/09	39
Rebecca O'Neill	Year 6	Cronk y Berry	20/10/08	32

Click here for the full leaderboard

Double Dutch - Minimum 50 skips

Two long ropes will be needed. Two ropes are turned in opposite directions and the skipper needs to be able to enter the ropes and skip both ropes. More than one person can be inside the ropes at once.

Manx Record - 1175

Name	Age	School	Date	Number of Skips
Alicia Oates		Sulby	13/01/09	446
James Pringle	Year 6	Cronk y Berry	20/10/08	401
Olivia McKee	Year 5	Cronk y Berry	26/09/08	324

Click here for the full leaderboard

Keep the Pot Boiling - Minimum 30 skips

One long rope and a small group of skippers will be needed for this category. This skipping challenge requires skippers to be able to enter, skip once and exit the long rope. When exited they need to run around the tuner in a figure of 8 and wait for their turn again. The next skipper must follow on immediately with no empty turn in-between.

Manx and British Record - 4029

Name	Age	School	Date	Number of Skips
Corey Vaughan, Nathan Vaughan, Grace Hoodless, Sam Lancaster, Richard Nespor, Charlie Faulds, Kate Lamming, Lauren Wright, Kyra Barton		Cronk y Berry	29/09/08	751
Kate Lamming, Cliona Collins, Charlie Robinson, Samantha Nespor, Caitlin Lacey, Sam Lancaster, Rebecca O'Neill, Laura McCallion, Tia Goss	Year 6	Cronk y Berry	17/09/08	637
Year 6 Skipping Club	Year 6	Cronk y Berry	20/10/08	611

Click here for the full leaderboard

Archive News 2007/2008/2009

Another Record for the Isle of Man!

Congratualtions to Alicia Oates and Alex Drowley of Sulby School who have managed to beat the Face to Face skipping record held by a school in England. A total of 2164 complete turns of the rope with no mistakes is a massive score for a person on their own, so to do this as partner skips is truely impressive. Well done ladies, that makes 2 of the all time records for the skipping challenge are now held by schools on the Island.

Go to www.skipping-workshops.org.uk to find out more scores from the UK.

Manx Records for Arbory School

Congratulations to Ella Clague of Arbory School who has broken the Manx record for Double Unders. 76 continuous skips is a fantastic score! Abigail Coulthard has also broken a Manx record for backwards skipping, completing a total of 466 skips. Great work Arbory!

Well done to the Buchan School and Kewaigue School who have recently had skipping days at their school.

A special mention must go to Kewaigue's Year 2 class, especially Loius Gilbert with some great long rope skipping, and Lucy Todd who managed to skip with a normal rope inside the long rope! Also, to year 5 and 6 who stayed behind for a double dutch session, and managed to get on the scoreboard for the "Keep the Pot Boiling" figure of 8.

Cronk y Berry Skipping Club have also been very busy with lots of new scores being sent in. Well done to you all, and keep it up! There could be more UK records being broken on the Island this year!

Second Annual Celebration of Skipping Awards

A year’s worth of practicing tricks and skills, with a skipping rope in the playground, has come to an end with the second annual Celebration of Skipping. It was kindly hosted by last year’s winner of the overall school skipping award, Rushen Primary School. Visiting schools Willaston, St John’s, Cronk y Berry performed along with three groups of children from Rushen School.

The celebration comes at the end of a year where skipping has continued to be very popular. The Department of Health and Social Security’s Public Health Directorate, along with the Department of Education’s Skimmee Gien Mie, supported by Isle of Man Anti Cancer Association have been working hard to promote skipping as a healthy physical activity in schools. The partnership has, over the past few years, organised visits from skipping coaches from the UK to the majority of the islands Primary and Secondary Schools. This year it included a visiting team of year 6 skippers from Seer Green Primary School in England who toured a number of Primary schools. Public Health now have a qualified level 1 rope skipping coach on their team who can go into schools and encourage the development of skipping to all ages.

Thanks go to all who made the event possible, especially to the children who performed and the teachers and parents who attended the event.

The winners of the 2007/2008 Manx Skipping Challenge were as follows

KS2 Awards

Continuous Crossovers - Samantha Caughey of Cronk Y Berry

Pretzels – Megan Waddington of Cronk Y Berry

Face to Face -Alicia Oates and Rio Hall of Sulby School

Double Unders – Melissa Bell of Cronk Y Berry

Double Dutch – Stephanie Osborn of Cronk Y Berry

Keep the Pot Boiling – The Dudettes of Rushen Hannah, Shannon B, Maddy, Jodie, Shannon M, Ciara M, Ciara W, Caitlin, Rachael, Jessica, Niamh

KS1 Awards

Backwards Skipping - Callum Skinner of Rushen School

One Foot Skipping - Sinead Stephens of Rushen School

Long Rope Skipping - Holly of Ballasalla School

Partner/Butterfly Skipping - Erin Lillie and Emily Craine of Michael School

Overall School Achievement Award 2007/2008 - Cronk Y Berry School

Health Promotion Officer awarded Level 1 Rope Skipping Coaching certificate

After a gruelling 2 day course of seemingly none stop skipping, I am now a qualified level 1 coach in rope skipping. For more information about the British Rope Skipping Association who runs the coaching click here. Thanks to the Isle of Man Anti Cancer Association for supporting the skipping project, and also to the BRSA for their hospitality and training. I hope to use my new skills across the Island, so if you would like to find out more, or would like me to visit to coach any skipping groups, please let me know.

2006/2007 ARCHIVE NEWS!

Celebration of Skipping 2007/2008

This event is to be held at Rushen Primary School on the 18th July 2008 at 10.00 a.m. This year we have entries from Onchan, Cronk y Berry, Willaston and St Johns School as well as the hosts Rushen School. This is a non competitive event for groups of pupils to demonstrate their artisitc skipping talent to music. The awards for the Manx Skipping Challenge will also be presented at the event and the entries have now closed for the Manx Skipping Challenge this year, although I will continue to update the website if entries are received they will not be entered into the competition.

For more details please email me.

Seer Green School visited the Island at the end of Febraury to show off their fantastic skipping skills. Many thanks to the girls for all their hard work, and thanks also to Ken and Pam for escorting the girls on their trip. Photos will follow soon.

There is also a new website with lots of information about skipping - playground rhymes, benefits of skipping and much more. Go to www.skip-hop.co.uk.

Skipping Workshops UK have had a successful visit to the Island again this October, taking in the following schools:

St Ninian's High School, Ramsey Grammar School, Fairfield School, Castle Rushen High School, Ballakermeen High School, Victoria Road School, Onchan Primary School, Ballacloan Infants School, Jurby Community School and Foxdale School.

The scoreboard is now looking very healthy, with entries from secondary schools too! Keep up the great work!

Keep the Pot Boiling...

The skippers from Rushen School (pictured below) attempted one last time to break their own record for "Keep the Pot Boiling". This time the usual team, with help of Joe Reid, have succeeded. They have now set the UK record at 4,029 continuous skips - a massive achievement. Mr Thompson, the Headtecher is very pleased with their success and hopes they will continue with their skipping at secondary school. Well done all!

New UK Record Set by Rushen School Skippers!

Skippers from Rushen Primary School have smashed the UK National Record for continuous long rope skipping. A massive "Well Done" goes to skippers Maddie, Emma, Breesha, Ellan, Fabrina and Eleanor, with Katie and Joanna turning the rope. The record now stands at 3172 continuous skips. Fantastic work!

Skipping DVD from Cronk y Berry School

A Skipping DVD has been produced by Cronk y Berry School to help teachers and pupils learn the moves of the skipping challenge, more skips and tricks, and also the demonstration from the Blue and White Rope Skippers that visited many schools earlier this year. All schools on the Island should now have received copies. Thanks to all involved in the production of this resource.

Celebration of Skipping at Cronk y Berry a Success

The Celebration of Skipping held at Cronk y Berry School on the 3rd July 2007 was a fantastic event. The first such Celebration that the Island has experienced saw children from St Johns, Rushen and Cronk y Berry School demonstrating the skills they had been practising all year for an audience of special guests, parents and other pupils from across the island.

Notable performances included spectacular use of lo-lo balls and skipping ropes from St Johns School, cartwheels into the long rope from Cronk Y Berry, and amazing long rope and double dutch skills from Rushen Primary School. The year 2 children at Cronk Y Berry also stunned the audience with the skills they had learned - all routines that they should be proud of. I am convinced that all routines have inspired others to give skipping a go (and the double under crossovers, and cross-cross have got me inspired to keep practising).

Unfortunately due to conflicting events Michael School Skipping Club were unable to appear in person, but delivered what can only be described as an awe inspiring performance on DVD that was viewed at the beginning of the event. Thank you to Alice and her team of budding skippers who have mastered some difficult skills and combined them with gymnastics too. Watch out girls, the Blue and Whites will be knocking on your door soon! Thanks to all the people involved in the DVD production and look forward to seeing you at the Celebration in person next year.

The winners of the Manx Skipping Challenge were Maddie Bridle, Zoe Cheung, Alicia and Rio, Eloise Cain, Lewis Poultney and the girls from Rushen School topped the table for Keep the Pot Boiling. The overall school prize went to Rushen School, although Cronk y Berry were extremely close competitors and are sure to put up stiff competition for the Isle of Man Anti Cancer Association Skipping Sheild next year.

Thanks to all at Cronk y Berry School for your organisation of the event, with great powerpoints, fantastic comparing from the children and staff that all went into what was a very successful morning.

Thanks also, for all staff, parents and guests who attended - I hope you enjoyed it as much as the children did.