Your child will have just received their skills certificate for completing their assessments of the past few weeks. You might have a few questions about what exactly the certificate means. Is my child on track? Should they be moving up a group? Well never fear! We are here with answers.
On your child’s certificate you will find 5 - 9 different skills depending on their level. These certificate skills are practiced in the children’s class each week. Certificate skills are based on the progressions for various skill goals on each apparatus. Each skill has 4 different criteria which the gymnasts are assessed on. Gymnasts will get a tick for each criteria they can successfully complete in their assessment.
Example certificate skill - Straight jump to hold landing shape
Example criteria for the certificate skill...
Criteria 1: Start with arms on ears
Criteria 2: Straight legs in jump
Criteria 3: Land with feet together
Criteria 4: Hold landing shape for 3 seconds
Your child will have a circle filled in on of their certificate for each skill. They will receive either beginning, progressing, developing or established based on how many of the criteria they could show their coach on assessment day.
If a gymnast receives...
Beginning - they can complete one out of the four criteria.
Progressing - they can complete two out of the four criteria.
Developing - they can complete three out of the four criteria.
Established - they can complete all four of the criteria.
Did your child receive an established for all of their skills? That’s awesome! That means your budding gymnast is right on track for the class they’re in. They will now move onto a new set of assessment skills in their current class and continue to build on the foundations they have established.
Didn’t quite get 5 established skills? That’s okay too! There are lots of different factors as to why your child might not have all of their skills established yet. They might have only just started, maybe they haven't managed to figure out exactly how the skill works or they could even have just had an off day when they performed their assessment. All children progress at very different rates in gymnastics so if there are some areas identified that need extra work, your child will continue on to new skills but will need to revisit those tricky skills to establish the correct foundations for moving forward.
Our goal of these assessments every 12 weeks is to provide the coaches, gymnasts and parents with feedback about the areas your child is doing really well in, and some areas that might need some improvement. These assessments are not an assessment to move the gymnasts up a level, but our supervisors are always on the lookout for keen gymnasts who we think could benefit from a challenge! Remember to always feel free to have a chat to your child’s coach if you have any other questions about their certificate or the class they are in.
And until next time, Happy Handstanding!