The Scottish Schools Cheerleading Competition started as an idea during my probation year at Falkirk’s Denny High School in 2015. My love for PE and physical activity stemmed from the many opportunities that were afforded to me in my school years, and - as a dancer and cheerleader for many years - I wanted to provide the same experiences for my young people.
I began by introducing an extracurricular cheerleading club. This was a new activity to many students, but one that quickly became very popular. Cheerleading as a sport is renowned for its inclusivity of all genders, abilities, maturation stages, body types and interests.
People love the team ethos required to succeed as a collective. In cheer, you are only as good as the person beside you, behind you, below you or above you; rhythm, trust, timing, control and athleticism are all non-negotiables in a quality team routine. The physical requirements of flyers, bases and tumblers are so different that every single person plays a key role.
It became clear to me that cheer was becoming increasingly popular in a number of like-minded local schools. I reached out to several teachers and began planning for a school-hosted cheerleading competition. The inaugural year involved five schools across four local authorities. It was held at Denny High and was a huge success. I knew that the competition had the potential to grow further and started planning straight away for the following year. However, at that stage, I had no idea how big it would become.
Given my long-held love of dance and cheerleading, I have always been passionate about increasing personalisation and choice in schools for all young people. It has been so refreshing to see schools and individual departments embracing more divergent curricula in recent years, particularly in a creative and aesthetic (C and A) context: dance, gymnastics, trampolining and so on.
Cheerleading: spreading cheer in Scottish schools
In order to meet all benchmark outcomes, I was conscious that C and A pupils needed a team context to experience; for example, inclusion, responsibilities, leadership, respect and communication. I, therefore, introduced cheer and pom dance into our curriculum at Bo’ness Academy, also in Falkirk, which is where I secured a permanent job as a PE teacher. The impact of cheer on both curricular and extracurricular engagement was almost instant: as extracurricular participation grew, uptake for certificated C and A PE increased.
Following three successful years, it became clear that the competition had become too big to host in a school. I approached the Falkirk Community Trust’s Active Schools team to see how they could support me. From 2018 the competition was held at Grangemouth Sports Complex. Year upon year the competition grew both in numbers and performance quality, culminating in approximately 800 students attending from 23 schools across 15 local authorities. (A huge thanks to Cameron, Fiona and the rest of the team instrumental in making it happen.)
Since starting the competition in 2015, both my professional and personal circumstances have changed. I am now a principal teacher as part of a fantastic pastoral support team at Newbattle High School in Midlothian, and also a mum to a fabulous one-year-old.
Cheer will always be a passion of mine but I knew I could no longer give the competition the attention it requires to be run on the scale that it now operates at. However, this is not the end for the Scottish Schools Cheerleading Competition - I have handed over the event to two excellent colleagues. More information will be shared shortly on this but rest assured the competition is in very good hands.
It is amazing to see how cheer has grown across Scotland and its schools in such a short space of time. I sign off from my own direct involvement in the national schools’ competition as a very proud teacher.
Caroline Millar is a principal teacher at Newbattle High School in Midliothian. She tweets @MrsCMillar
