Circus workshops for schools

We bring circus into schools across Yorkshire. Children learn to juggle, spin plates, work a diabolo, walk on stilts and balance things that have no business balancing. Teachers watch quiet children take charge and loud children learn to wait their turn. Here is exactly what a day looks like, so you can decide whether it fits your school before you ask anyone for money.

Three formats

Taster hour

One tutor, one class, one hour. Juggling, plate spinning, flower sticks and diabolo, taught in a circle with everybody trying everything. Good for an enrichment slot, a transition day or a taste before you commit to more.

Half day

Two tutors, three or four classes on rotation, roughly forty minutes each. Every group gets the full kit list plus balance boards. Most schools run this across one year group in a morning and let the afternoon go back to normal.

Full day, the Circus Day

Two tutors, the whole day, up to six groups on rotation, ending with a sharing for the rest of the school or for parents at pick up. Stilts and unicycles come out on a full day because there is time to teach them properly. This is the format schools come back for.

Ages, group sizes and rotations

• Early years and Reception: up to 20 at a time, 25 minute rotations, scarves, plate spinning and balance. No stilts, no unicycles.
• Key Stage 1: up to 30, 30 minute rotations. Juggling with beanbags, plates, flower sticks, low balance.
• Key Stage 2: up to 30, 40 minute rotations. The full kit list including stilts and, with space, unicycles.
• Key Stage 3 and 4: up to 30, 45 to 60 minute rotations. Older groups take on partner acrobatics and building a short routine to show.
• Mixed year groups: we plan it with you. Pairing an older group with a younger one and letting the older children coach works better than either alone.

The space

Indoors

• A hall or gym, cleared, at least 10 metres by 10 metres for a full group.
• Ceiling height of 4 metres or more for stilts and juggling clubs. Under that we swap in activities that stay low, and we will tell you in advance which ones go.
• A wooden or vinyl floor is ideal. Carpet is fine. Wet or polished floors are not.
• Somewhere to lay kit out along one edge, away from the working space.

Outdoors

• A flat playground or a firm field. Grass is fine for stilts if it is dry and level, and not if it is neither.
• No overhead cables or low branches anywhere near the stilt area.
• Shade or a covered corner in summer. Circus is hot work.

What we bring

• Experienced circus tutors, two for a half or full day, one for a taster.
• All the equipment: juggling balls, beanbags, scarves, rings, clubs, plates, diabolos, flower sticks, balance boards, stilts and unicycles where the space allows.
• Mats for anything that leaves the ground.
• A plan built round your year groups and your timetable, not a stock session.
• A risk assessment and method statement written for your site.

What the school supplies

• The space, cleared before we arrive.
• A member of school staff in the room for the whole session. Joining in is welcome.
• Parking or a drop off point close to the door. There is a lot of kit.
• Children in PE kit or something they can move in, and bare feet or trainers.
• Access to a toilet and somewhere to fill a water bottle.

If it rains

Everything in the standard day works indoors, so rain does not cancel anything. Only two things need a weather call: stilts outdoors, and any aerial rigging on an outdoor frame. We make that call with you the week before and again on the morning, and we swap in indoor activities rather than standing about hoping.

Accessibility and SEND

Circus is unusually good at this, because there is no single right way to do any of it and nobody starts ahead. Tell us what your children need and we plan round it. Things we are asked for often, and are happy to do:

• Shorter rotations, or a quiet space a child can step out to and come back from.
• No music, or music kept low.
• Seated versions of every activity, which exist for all of them.
• Warning before anything loud or sudden, and no surprises in the sharing.
• A tutor briefed on specific children by name, where you want that.
• Wheelchair users fully included: juggling, plate spinning and diabolo all work seated.

Nobody is made to perform. There is always another job going: counting, calling, holding, coaching someone else. Children who will not touch a juggling ball in the first hour often run the sharing by the end of the day.

Safeguarding, DBS and insurance

• Every tutor who works in a school holds an enhanced DBS check. We send the certificate details with the booking paperwork, before the day, not on the day.
• We work to a written safeguarding policy and we name our safeguarding lead in the paperwork. If anything is disclosed to a tutor it goes straight to your designated safeguarding lead, that day.
• A member of school staff stays in the room throughout. Our tutors are never alone with a child, and we will not run a session where that cannot be arranged.
• We hold public liability insurance up to £10 million and send the certificate with the booking paperwork.
• A risk assessment and method statement for your site comes with the same pack, written for your hall and your year groups rather than lifted from a template.

The approval checklist

There is a one page checklist that puts all of the above in front of whoever signs the cheque: what you are asking for, what we bring, what the school supplies, the paperwork, and the five questions every head teacher asks. We email it to you when you confirm your entry to the draw. It is not on the site as a public download, because it is written for you and not for a search engine.

Enter the draw and we will send it, or email hello@yorkshirecircus.co.uk and ask, and we will send it anyway.

Where the money goes

Yorkshire Circus is a social circus organisation. One hundred per cent of any profits we make from running workshops goes back into keeping creative arts facilities open in Yorkshire and paying circus artists properly for their work.