We think the schools work best if you can find at least 1 other person to support you. They can help you with leading rides (e.g. being back marker, leading rides if you’re not available etc) and they’re also useful for bouncing off ideas like ‘is this bit too gnarly? Is this ride too short?’. Don’t. worry if you haven’t got anyone initially, you might find that once you start a school some keen beans come along and quickly step into more of a leadership role with the group.
We designed the curriculum to break down the main components of off road riding. By introducing these components gradually over a series of weeks riders should feel like they’re ticking off great progress markers and improving. They feel great so they come back for more (and bring their friends!). The jumps should be manageable and no one should ever feel too intimidated by a feature on a ride that they check out. We’re here to leave our comfort zones in a supportive and non judgemental environment and we trust your judgment as a school leader to know what riding in your local area is appropriate and if you’re unsure reach out to our network of school leaders. It may be that your area doesn’t have any easy climbs descents so instead you session one particular bit of trail gradually becoming more confident with the same descent. Or it may be that you don’t have any hills (Netherlands we’re looking at you!) so here you might want to introduce a different technical element like sand, river crossings or have some fun at the pump track!
The curriculum has been designed in a way to try and build consistency and good habits over time. We worked it out that 6 weeks is a great amount of time to make great progress and feel more confident about riding, make friends to go riding with and also build the good habit of riding every week. At the same time we understand that our lives are already hectic and as a school lead you’re giving us your time as a gift. If you can only do 4 weeks that is better than 0 weeks. You might even find that the community feels ownership over the school and everyone chips in to keep it going.
Consistency is a key ingredient of the School. When we designed the curriculum we recognised that sometimes as riders we make big breakthroughs but then don’t consolidate them by leaving it so long between bike rides we forget! So this is why we made the rides every week, to try and carry over as much skill and confidence from each week to the next. However, we also recognise that life and the weather get in the way! If you need to take a break for life you could try putting it out to your community, does anyone want to run a half term recap? Or if you need to take a rain check for some bad weather try and encourage folks to go out some other time that week when the weather is better.
Whenever you want! The biggest thing that determines when schools start are:
2)Time of year - seasons, daylight, temperature
Feel free to take any text from the notion or ‘@theschoolofrocks’ main insta page.
One of our amazing Rockstars Claire has made this template in Canva for anyone to use https://www.canva.com/design/DAE8X6B5ipY/zgt3GASQoH7ftk5zW__iPQ/edit?utm_content=DAE8X6B5ipY&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton
And another amazing Rockstar Helen made this template https://www.canva.com/design/DAE8X6B5ipY/zgt3GASQoH7ftk5zW__iPQ/edit?utm_content=DAE8X6B5ipY&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton
Or if you want to make your own these are the colour codes for School of Rocks branding: Background HEX: e9dddd // Purple HEX: b34fdc // Brown HEX: 442b0a Blue HEX: 45cce7 // Green HEX: 50f5b8 // Orange HEX: fa7d2a Yellow HEX: fffc27