Scottish Cycling have today launched their new children’s cycling programme titled ‘Mini Riders’, aimed at children who love riding their bikes.
Targeting 4–8 year-olds, Mini Riders is designed to fill the gap in the current pathway between learning to ride a bike, and joining and engaging in club activity, the programme providing fun cycling sessions for children to develop their cycling confidence and learn new skills.
Focused on children who can already ride a bike independently, the sessions will be led by qualified coaches, with children progressing through six-week blocks of progressive and stimulating sessions, which, importantly, have regular milestones to demonstrate their progress and ensure that they are motivated to continue cycling once they get home.
Scottish Cycling has developed this programme to ensure that more children across Scotland are able to continue their cycling journey at the right level for them. The creation of this new product is designed to mirror the experience that children experience in their early stages of participating in a youth cycling club, developing the fundamental skills of cycling.
Over the last sixth months we have worked alongside Gary McKeegan of Support Sport Services to create a fun and progressive curriculum that teaches the basics of cycling, whilst still incorporating the most important element, fun!
We also teamed up with Brand Oath, who supported the Scottish Cycling rebrand last year, to create a compelling identity for the Mini Riders programme, ensuring it appeals to children, but also talks to parents and programme deliverers. With their vast experience of supporting the sports sector with their branding needs, we are delighted with what they have come up with, particularly with the creation of Jax, who will be the face of Mini Riders.
The Mini Riders programme format has been designed to allow any club, organisation or local authority to easily incorporate cycling into their current offering, and is flexible enough to be compatible with a wide range of operational models. Purchase of a yearly licence will provide access to a range of materials, including sessions plans, coaches handbook, marketing materials and coach CPD opportunities.
Jamie Taylor, Club Development Manager (Children and Young People) at Scottish Cycling, noted:
“We are really looking forward to sharing the programme with potential partners across the country over the coming months and years. This offering is something that we have been trying to create for a long time to complete the pathway of a young person's cycling development journey, and we are confident that Mini Riders does this. The offering and design of the programme will hopefully make it quite simple for organisations and clubs alike to pick up and implement with relative ease.”
With a pilot programme with a number of local authorities set to get underway imminently, we welcome both expressions of interest and further discussions with any interested local authorities, groups or cycling clubs who might want to add the programme to their offering.
Should you wish to discuss Mini Riders further, please contact Jamie Taylor via jamie.taylor@scottishcycling.org.uk
