Brigshaw students star in Touch Rugby tournament

After a successful term of Rugby League delivery, Leeds Rhinos Foundation’s Rugby League Development Team capped off their work with Year 7 students at Brigshaw High School by hosting a thrilling Touch Rugby tournament earlier this week.

The intra-school tournament proved incredibly popular amongst the students, with over 60 Boys and Girls taking the chance to  and put into action the skills they have developed in their PE lessons under the guidance of Foundation coaches Ian Hardman and Lois Forsell, who for the past six weeks have been delivering rugby league lessons to the youngsters as part of their core curriculum.

All sessions have closely followed the latest RFL delivery guidelines to ensure they remained COVID-secure; coaching given to 10 different Year 7 class bubbles, consisting of more than 260 pupils in total.

Delighted to end a turbulent year on such a high note, Rugby League Development Coordinator Ian Hardman said, “As COVID-19 has had a huge impact on our Rugby League delivery in high schools since September, the chance to engage with so many pupils and provide meaningful competition has been extremely positive and also provided the blueprint for future delivery in secondary schools.

“It has been great to back coaching the Year 7 pupils at Brigshaw High School this term and I would like to thank all their PE staff for being so accommodating during this period. I hope that we can repeat this process in many more schools across the city in the new year to give more young people the opportunity to learn and play our great sport.”

Paul Brennan, Head of PE at Brigshaw High School, commented: “It’s been great having Ian and Lois in from Leeds Rhinos Foundation delivering Rugby League coaching to all of our Year 7 students. The aim of this initiative was to end the term with a year-wide Touch Rugby tournament after school, which was really important for the Foundation coaches and our school’s PE department as the pandemic has meant both organisations have been unable to fulfil their usually very busy extra-curricular programme.

“The event was very well attended and was played in a great spirit with a real mixture of playing experiences. As always we had a lot of players who have played from a very young age and then we had some students playing in their first competitive rugby tournament for whom it was a really positive experience.

“This tournaments given our Year 7s their first taste of what we as a department offer and they are certainly looking forward to more of the same in the new year. Ian and Lois are great coaches and role models for our students and the students in Leeds and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Leeds Rhinos Foundation in future.”

For more information on our High Schools Rugby League programme, please contact ian.hardman@leedsrhinosfoundation.org.

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