July 2010 saw the inaugural Mandeville and Buckingham SSP cheerleading festival, with six schools represented and over 60 cheerleaders aged from 12 to 16 bringing together their unique energy and enthusiasm to the Stoke Mandeville Stadium in Aylesbury.

The Buckingham and Mandeville School Sport Partnerships work across all the Primary and Secondary schools in Aylesbury Vale, aiming to harness the talents of local authority, charitable and private sector coaches to increase participation and improve performance in school sport. The SSP’s introduced cheerleading training for teachers and coaches last year with support from the United Kingdom Cheerleading Association (UKCA) and have had success in running sessions within schools throughout the county.

July’s cheerleading festival was the first opportunity for the school teams within the Mandeville and Buckingham partnerships to showcase the skills they have learnt in a fun and inviting environment.

The day was fantastic and included a mass warm-up to start the event and a Street Cheer workshop to finish; sandwiching the cheerleading itself. Everyone danced and cheered the best they could and everyone did themselves proud. The standard of routines hitting the floor was amazing with every school producing superb cheer routines.

Ema Nulty the Buckingham School Sport Partnership Development Manager enthused
“Everyone really enjoyed the festival although to be honest it was a bit too noisy for me!”

It was always going to noisy with everyone trying their hardest to get hold of the Sprit Award for their team. This year the lucky winners were the Sir Henry Floyd School who showed the true meaning of cheerleading. A Big well done to them!

Cheerleaders from The Buckingham and Royal Latin Schools said
“It was great fun and we really enjoyed it, we want to do it again. We met loads of new people from other schools.”

The coming year:
July was only the beginning of what is hoped to be a fun packed year ahead within the Buckingham and Mandeville School Sport Partnerships, with plans for next year’s secondary schools cheerleading competition already in full swing for May ……2011. We are hoping that next year’s event will be opened up to all Secondary schools within Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes leading to a bigger, better and louder competition than this year.

The partnership will be supporting participation from schools and individuals in the coming months by hosting both Leadership and Basic skills courses that will be run by the UKCA. These courses are planned to enable our older students and teachers to get involved with the coaching at our primary schools as well as a community club that is due to start in September. The sport that is Cheerleading is definitely set to grow throughout Bucks.