What does the UK's learning structure for ice skating look like?

For any future posts that reference my own skating progress within the UK's learning system(s) then this post is going to cover the UK's learning structure for overseas readers. You can find a summary of the structure at the bottom of this post and it's all correct as far as I know.

I've read quite a bit about the American learning structure from the American skating bloggers so I hope this is useful info even if only as a reference tool. As with most ice skating education, you can learn in groups (particularly the early stuff) or hire a coach for private lessons.

Who runs this show?

At the highest level, ice skating teaching, testing and national/international competition arrangements is handled by the National Ice Skating Association (NISA). They seem an okay bunch but, at this stage in my skating career, I've not really had much to do with them and the learning course they designed seems fine to me but what do I know? Other people, like coaches and professionals, probably have a better opinion about decisions and things NISA've made but that's not me! At least, not yet...

NISA's Learning to Skate Structure Now Revealed...

Under NISA's banner there is a common learning program, used by many rinks, called the "Skate UK" system (formerly known as "Learn to Skate"). Skate UK is broken into eight levels of basic skills, which is broken down very clearly on NISA's site, but essentially it starts with learning to get up and sit down and ends with continuous three turns on a circle and small one foot spins. You can get badges and certificates for each level and you often see young skaters with their badges lovingly sewn on (by mum or dad I imagine) in a line up their jacket sleeve. Skate UK is designed as the foundation of all skating disciplines, whether you want to do free skating, ice dance, speed skating, syncro, etc.

If you want to see the Skate UK levels demonstrated in video form, I can recommend the Nottingham National Ice Centre's homepage, which, if you scroll far enough down, has a video of all the skills from levels 1-8 demonstrated by skaters, backed to some funky-yet-generic, stock filmmaker music. I used to watch these when I was running through the Skate UK course and I used to marvel at how hard the later level stuff looked. I went back to watch them again as part of putting this post together and it made me appreciate how far I'd come.

Back on track, after you complete the Skate UK levels you can do the Skate Star levels, which are broken into Bronze, Silver and Gold and there are separate badges for the different disciplines of skating (free skating/ice dance/synchro/etc.) Again, NISA's website covers the criteria very comprehensively. I've linked the free skating section of the Skate Star levels but you can check out the other disciplines on the left-hand side of their site if you're interested.

How Skate UK and Skate Star levels are assessed varies by rink. Where I'm learning then the coaches just tick you off as they think you've demonstrated each skill, but I've heard some places do test days, which I doubt are highly formal compared to the NISA level assessments, which I'm about to get to.

After Skate Star, you can join NISA as a member and apply to do their NISA test levels 1-10. At this point, you'll start getting external judges assessing your elements and routines depending on which levels you're doing and what discipline you're in. I actually couldn't find an up to date comprehensive breakdown of each level on NISA's website (bizarrely) but I did find what I believe is a somewhat dated list of the requirements for each level on this site (levels 5-10 are on another page). There's nothing more after NISA 10 as you're basically a professional by that point, though I don't imagine I'll make it that far so I needn't worry about that!

But wait! There's more!

In addition to Skate UK, there's another learning program for beginners called "Skate Excellence" that is popular in some rinks around the UK. I haven't had any experience of the Skate Excellence program myself but, based on my reading of their website, they mostly seem to tackle the basics (like the Skate UK scheme). The approach seems to be about making the learning process more fun and less technical. If you'd like to know more then click through to their website.

In summary:

• NISA runs most things ice skating from an administration perspective in the UK
• Skate UK comes first (levels 1-8, generally learned in a group, no external assessment)
• Skate Star follows up (Bronze-Gold, discipline specific, can be learned in a group but private gets more common, no external assessment)
• NISA levels for the really keen (1-10, discipline specific, generally practised in private lessons, external assessments and you can be failed on tests)
• Some UK rinks use Skate Excellence instead.

For reader interest, at the time of writing this, I've only officially been marked off on Skate UK levels 1-5 as my rink's adult group class instructors don't tend to focus so much on ticking adults off for certificates (I think they think adults are above all that - WE ARE NOT ABOVE THAT, EVERYONE IN THOSE GROUP CLASSES WANTS THE CERTIFICATES!) Unofficially, I'm somewhere between Skate Star Gold and am preparing for my first NISA level.

So there you have it; learning to skate in the UK!