A Hāwea Flat School Jump Jam team has won the South Island Jump Jam Competition two years in a row, and a second team from the school placed third in the competition.

Teacher Symone Craig said the two teams “knocked it out of the park” during the competition at the Christchurch Boys High School auditorium, despite last-minute changes to their routines.

Jump Jam is a form of aerobics for schools invented by world champion aerobics instructor Brett Fairweather. It’s a combination of fitness work and dance, to an up-to-the-minute soundtrack of hip hop and pop songs, designed to appeal to school-age children. 

An all girls Hāwea team of 15 Year 5 and 6 students, called Hāwea Flat Sass, competed in the Advanced division at the competition, placing first in the South Island. The girls performed to ‘A Little Party’ from The Great Gatsby (2013) movie.

The mixed team of 11 girls and five boys - Hāwea Flat Funk - placed third in the All Stars division, performing to ‘Uptown Funk’.

The Hāwea Flat Funk team

“I could not be more proud of them,” Symone said, adding that the two Hāwea teams gave positive feedback to the other teams and were friendly and sportsmanlike.

“They just knocked it out of the park with their level of energy, and their calls [singing/chanting]. The whole performance lifted from the day before,” she said.

Teams are judged on technical execution, creativity, and costumes. There were requirements for the All Star division to have original formations and lines, and the Advanced division to have as much as 33 per cent original choreography. 

Symone, a former aerobics teacher, developed the original choreography, and the teams spent weeks and weeks sacrificing their lunchtimes to rehearse.

Travelling to Christchurch with such large groups was an expensive business, and funds were raised through raffles of local services and products and hot lunches at school. The Hāwea Community Association donated $2,000, and a school family donated a further $1,000.

To keep travel costs down for the teams, South Island teams compete in Christchurch and North Island teams at a North Island location. Then the judges tally the scores for each to determine the national winner, which will happen later this month.

PHOTOS: Supplied