Five tips to bring circus skills into a school setting
Ensure equality of experience
As much as possible keep the workshop kit uniform.
Things like scruffiness and perceived “coolness” of a prop (that’s what we in the business call circus equipment) is important to children and young adults. As much as possible try and use kit that is all roughly the same. If half the class get nice juggling balls and the other half have to use tennis balls it will cause friction and a dissatisfied feeling for the tennis ball half. A circus workshop isn’t the place to teach them about the old phrase “a bad workman blames his tools”.
At first, look, don’t touch!
Don’t let the children physically hold the props while you are introducing the activity. The tactile sensory feast of holding a spinning plate set is almost guaranteed to distract. Hand the kit out, but have the class place the props on the ground while you introduce the activity. Trust me, we’ve led hundreds of workshops; the improvement in listening skills will be remarkable.
Fail Fail Win??
With the internet children are very keyed into the binary idea of win and fail. This is very challenging when applied to circus because the fail part is intrinsic and unavoidable while the win part occurs at different rates.
Work in little “wins” by inserting easier mini challenges for example two-handed throwing and catching whilst learning to juggle. When you book Kids Circus Workshop tutor all this knowledge comes built into our lesson plans; see our school workshops page for more details (link).
There’s a reason circus flourished under the bigtop!
Circus skills are easier indoors! As a Kids Circus Workshops teacher, when I arrive at a school I am often directed towards the outside green area. It is not actually that suitable for learning circus.
I would always recommend using a school hall or gym space. Don’t worry we are very used to packing away quickly to keep the dinner supervisors happy!
Factors for outdoors spaces:
- Wind: any wind at all can make lots of tricks rather tricky. Spinning a lightweight plate is almost impossible.
- Sunshine: at Kids Circus Workshops we concentrate on ground-based juggling props as they are more accessible to all, less dangerous and in our opinion MORE FUN! (don’t tell the acrobats)… but looking up into sunlight isn’t all that pleasant for long periods.
- Gentle cardio: Learning to spin a plate or control a diabolo is not like the high octane running around that kids do in most sports. The higher temperature in the hall on most days of the year makes for a more pleasant experience for all.
Timing is everything
Spend too long on one prop and children will get frustrated, too short a time and they won’t get a chance to get that big dopamine hit of nailing a trick. Kids Circus Workshops leaders are experts at lesson plans and timings.
I have used my own teaching experience as an outdoor education teacher to create lesson plans that are elastic and react to how the group is fairing with each prop.
Our lessons can be as short as 30 minutes taster sessions for a whole school or a whole 3 days of circus activities, leading to a performance of the children’s skills and our own Circus show called FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL WIN. Click here for more information (link)
