Bath Rugby : End of season for EDF National Schools Rugby Programme

Chas Williamson

End of season for EDF National Schools Rugby Programme

8 July 2008, 5:15 pm

By Simon Clark

The EDF National Schools Rugby Programme for 2007/08 drew to a close earlier this week, with the last few schools from the final Blandford cluster receiving their new kit.

Over the period of the school year Bath Rugby’s community team have visited over 66 schools in Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset as part of the nationally sponsored rugby programme.

All 12 Guinness Premiership rugby clubs have been involved in running the programme over the course of the school year, bringing rugby and fun into primary and secondary schools all over the country.

Bath Rugby have been responsible for the delivery of the programme in many of the counties in the South West and have delivered rugby coaching to over 10, 000 children and adults.

The programme was broken down over the year into clusters. Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset clusters were run at the same time by the Bath Rugby Community staff.

In Dorset there have been clusters at Gillingham (2), Shaftesbury, Sturminster Newton and in Blandford. On the Somerset and Wiltshire side of things, clusters have been run in Shepton Mallet, Frome and Trowbridge, with the final clusters happening at local Bath primary schools

Each of the 66 schools that Bath Rugby have been to received 4 free rugby coaching sessions, a TAG rugby festival, where they get to pit their new found skills against other local schools, t-shirts and of course free stash which consists of balls, tags and cones.

Over 10 TAG Rugby festivals have been held with well over 1, 500 children competing and battling it out for the right to become their areas TAG rugby champions. It’s not all just about the children though. Teacher education mornings have been run all year round to enable each school to have their own qualified TAG rugby coach to carry on providing TAG rugby in their school once the programme has finished in their area.

Once again this years EDF National Schools Rugby Programme has been a massive success due to the hard work and the generosity of so many. Without these people this scheme would be half the success it is and hopefully with their continued support it will once again be bigger and better in the coming year.

Bath Rugby Community Coach Simon Rumbles said: “This year has been the best year yet for the EDF NSR programme in and around Bath. The feedback and the visible results of everyone running around with smiles on their faces has just been immense. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the programme this year - without them life would have been much harder!”