History

Thierstein’s London skating – inline skating lessons in Greenwich and Docklands

Kids skating and skateboarding lessons in London Zebra Skate London holiday camps

​We launched in June 2002 with a promotion in conjunction with Eurostar. Two hundred skaters were invited to the world’s most famous Friday night skate, the Pari-Roller. From the start we promoted safer skating as the entire trip was free to all those wearing a helmet on the London Friday Night Skate, the UK’s largest year-round group skate.

Later in 2002 The Instructor Development Programme (IDP) began. By the end of the year over 16 instructors had become UKISA-qualified. That same year UKISA became an officially registered body with DBS, the Disclosure and Barring Service, the government-backed organisation that offers access to Police, Department of Health (DH) and Department for Education (DfE) records.

At a time when child protection was emerging as a national concern, this was also the first time a recreational inline skating organisation in the UK had offered such a service to its instructors and the public. In the past three decades UKISA has been responsible for publicising skating, improving skating standards and raising the profile throughout the UK with National Skating Week events as well as promoting safer skating.

In 2015 a new journey began with the “Earn Your Stripes” kids skating programme. Children received their own personal skating booklet — a passport to progress — filled with sticker slots for every technique mastered. Each sticker earned was a badge of achievement, turning the learning journey into an adventure that kept young skaters hungry for the next challenge.

2020: Cultivating the Next Generation — As a pandemic-driven resurgence brought inline skating back to the streets, UKISA opened its existing Instructor Development Programme (IDP) to juniors for the first time, welcoming a new generation of young leaders into the skating community.

2026: A Quarter-Century of the Friday Night Skate — In May 2026, the London Friday Night Skate celebrated its 25th Anniversary. This flagship event has drawn tens of thousands of participants over twenty-five years, transforming the capital’s landscape and cementing inline skating as a vibrant fixture of London culture.

Decathlon, Birmingham, London, Nottingham, Romford

London Skate Centre, Bayswater, London

Loco Skates – Eastbourne

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