Skip to tie up record

By Casey Neill
HILLS primary school students will join others across Australia hoping to hop, skip and jump their way into the record books.
Students from more than 10,000 Australian schools will attempt to break a Guinness world record for skipping to celebrate 25 years of the Heart Foundation’s Jump Rope for Heart Program.
Several schools will gather at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre for the record attempt at 11.30am on Friday 9 May, but most will skip locally.
Belgrave South, St Josephs, Wattle View and The Patch primary schools were all invited to participate.
The Patch’s physical education teacher Kate Haley said it was the first time the school had been invited to join the program.
Ms Haley said the students were excited about the record attempt.
“They’ve been asking ‘are we going to be in that book?’,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Each student has been supplied with a rope to practice for the big day.
Ms Haley has been using skipping as a warm-up activity for sport classes and teachers take their class outside to practice at every spare moment.
She said parents will serve as witnesses to the record attempt, which must also be recorded on video and in photographs.
Ms Haley said Jump Rope for Heart was a great program.
“Physical fitness is optimum and skipping is quite a rigorous physical activity,” she said.
The 340-plus students at The Patch will wear red clothing for the challenge.
“It will be an amazing sight to see all the kids out on the oval,” Ms Haley said.
Almost 8000 participants set the current world record in the United Kingdom by skipping at various locations for three minutes with breaks of no more than 10 seconds.
More than 8 million students have participated in Jump Rope for Heart since it was established in 1983, raising more than $60 million.
This year’s event coincides with heart week, which runs from Sunday 4 May to Saturday 10 May.
Two out of three Australian families are affected by heart disease.
The aim of the program is to improve cardiovascular health and fitness and increase heart health awareness.