Week in the life of a Leeds Rugby Foundation Development Officer

So it’s been a busy week for the Foundation. Monday started with a dull wet trip up to Settle Middle School. However the enthusiasm of all the children made up for it in the driving rain.

Two groups of year 7 mixed classes were followed by the girls lunch time club. The afternoon gave me an opportunity to introduce “tackle” to the year 6 classes which proved to be a great success. Alison Balsamini from Settle Middle commented “It was also great for Mark and I to see some different warm-up drills. The kids said it was really 'cool'!” and Mr Glover also expressed “Thank you very much for coaching our pupils on Monday. The weather was very bad but they all thoroughly enjoyed getting wet and muddy. They loved it so much they are asking when you can come back and do a follow up session.”


On Tuesday morning I found myself working with 2 groups, the 1st group were year 7 girls and then out came the year 8 girls for their second week of curriculum coaching, developing basic skills and game knowledge.


A quick change and a short journey to Kirkstall training ground landed me on the year 9 boys Carnegie Champion School qualifiers which 12 schools took part in with Temple Moor, DYCA, Bruntcliffe and John Smeaton all progressing onto the next rounds of the competition.


As the rain continued to pour on Wednesday morning the session scheduled for at Corpus Christi Catholic College had to be postponed. But the weather was not going to stop the year 7 boys cluster rally held at Hunslet Parkside. The top 2 teams from the rally would progress through to the Leeds Citywide Carnegie Champion schools rally next week. First place went to Woodkirk second team to qualify were Cockburn.


Half way through the week and another busy day ahead with the weather improving putting a smile on my face.
Rodillian year 7 girls was the next check point. It was the 1st rugby lesson for the girls but lots of happy faces showed a positive outcome. Back to Kirkstall training academy saw the last boys festival for the week with 11 Year 10 teams aiming to qualify in the top four to progress onto the next stage of Carnegie Champion Schools. The four schools that progressed were Lawnswood, Temple Moor, Priesthorpe and Woodkirk. With that festival running it was back into the car to Soccer City for an indoor year 7 and 8 girls touch festival with 5 schools attending the girls played continuous rugby with 10 min games. The winners were Bruntcliffe. But a big well done to Leeds West Academy, Cockburn, Rodillian, Leeds East Acaademy who all displayed some great rugby.


So all in all a very productive week. Good luck to all those schools progressing onto the next stages of competitions and well done to the 621 young people that took part in Rugby League across the city this week.
 

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