Scottish Rugby firmly believes that sport can play a powerful role in providing the catalyst to improving the quality of life for young people in communities across Scotland. Rugby can offer young people potentially life changing opportunities to enhance their education and skills, improve their health & wellbeing, and build stronger and safer communities.

INTRODUCTION

The 2015/16 academic year saw the introduction of a partnership between St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, Scottish Rugby and Glasgow Hawks RFC, to establish a School of Rugby within St Thomas. As the only catholic school in the west end of the city, St Thomas covers the largest catchment area in Glasgow, with a large number of pupils attending from areas within the top 10% for multiple deprivation, such as Drumchapel and Whiteinch (according to the official SIMD 2012).

Neither St Thomas Aquinas nor its partner primary schools have much history of playing rugby, apart from participating in taster sessions and one off festivals over the past few years. It was hoped that establishing a school of rugby here would increase the number of rugby players within the school, as well as exposing more young people in the community to the Scottish Rugby values of leadership, respect, achievement, engagement and enjoyment. Players would also be encouraged to join their local rugby club, Glasgow Hawks, further broadening their horizons and increasing their opportunities to train and play competitively.

SCHOOL OF RUGBY PROGRESS

Prior to the start of the 2015/16 year, P7 pupils attending partner primary schools of St Thomas Aquinas received blocs of rugby delivery from the community development team at Glasgow Hawks, led by the Community Development Officer, Gary Strain. These pupils were then invited, along with their parents, to attend an information evening at St Thomas, where the programme was explained in more detail by Mr Thomas McMahon, Principal Teacher of PE, as well as staff of Scottish Rugby and Glasgow Hawks. It was also explained that Mr Finlay Gillies, who would be a probation teacher at the school from August 2015, would be leading the School of Rugby programme within the curriculum, with coaching support provided by Gary and his team of coaches. Mr Gillies is a former professional rugby player, having played for Glasgow Warriors and the Scotland 7s teams prior to qualifying as a PE teacher. The parents’ information evening proved successful, with a number of the young people present expressing an interest in being part of the first S1 School of Rugby group at the school.

Once the new school year had commenced, another recruitment drive took place, this time including second year pupils. This led to upwards of 30 S1s and 25 S2s signing up to the programme. These pupils would all take part in rugby three times per week; twice during curriculum time and once after school. After a deliberately slow start, in order to reinforce safe contact techniques to these players, who had no prior experience of full contact rugby, the school started entering teams into local competitions, delivered by the Glasgow Life Rugby Development team. These competitions had schools from all corners of the city competing, and St Thomas were one of few schools able to enter multiple teams, due to the healthy number of players taking part in the programme. The school continued their participation in a number of tournaments and festivals throughout the year, quickly progressing to become one of the stronger schools at these events.
“The St Thomas SoR has been hugely successful and beneficial to Rugby in Glasgow City. They’ve come from a school with very few players in previous years, to one of the stronger schools when competing this year. It has been absolutely fantastic to see their progression over the course of the year, and the enjoyment the players are getting from Rugby.” – Thomas Davidson, Glasgow Life Rugby Development Officer

Towards the end of the year, seven of the St Thomas players were selected to be part of a North West Glasgow team, to play against area teams from the North East and the South of the city. Following these matches, one of the St Thomas Aquinas first year players, Edem Damarly, described his enjoyment of the game, “Today was a great success, the rugby standard was great and I really love playing with my teammates from school. I’d love to join the local club, Glasgow Hawks, to meet new friends and gain more rugby knowledge.”

A number of other SoR players have expressed an interest in joining the local club, in order to test themselves at a higher standard and intensity than what they are used to. To date, a number of players have attended the club, with 5 players in particular attending on a consistent basis. This is in the region of 10% of the school’s playing population, which is a great turnover in the programme’s first year. It is also pleasing to note that one of the main reasons highlighted, in addition to developing a deeper understanding of the game, is the meet new people and build new friendships, as mentioned above by Edem. This is largely due to the sense of camaraderie and team spirit that is so vitally important to rugby as a game. The School of Rugby has also therefore increased the awareness of Glasgow Hawks as a club within the local community, and has led to the club taking more steps to better engage with its surrounding community as a whole.
"The School of Rugby at St Thomas Aquinas has been a resounding success for both the school and every pupil who took part. The School of Rugby acted as a platform for first and second year pupils to build friendships and relationships through teamwork and using the values within rugby. The support that the school received from Gary Strain and Josh Miller from Glasgow Hawks was outstanding, and was instrumental in the huge success we experienced at St Thomas Aquinas." – Finlay Gillies, PE Teacher and SoR Lead, St Thomas Aquinas

In addition to the experiences discussed above, the players from St Thomas were also given the opportunity to play a friendly fixture at Scotstoun Stadium against local rivals, Hyndland Secondary, prior to one of the Glasgow Warriors home fixtures. This meant that they also received tickets to watch the main game, which was the first experience of live professional rugby for the majority of these young people. All of this has contributed towards the first year of this programme being a tremendous success, which is aptly summarised by the quote below.

“Rugby this year has been phenomenal. My knowledge and enthusiasm has grown for rugby, and I hope to play more games next year at school and maybe at Glasgow Hawks.” – Reiss Kasule, 2nd year SoR pupil

The Glasgow Warriors and one of its sponsors, Scottish Power, hosted a tournament for Schools of Rugby during the last term of 2015/16, and the players from St Thomas again achieved on field success, reaching the semi-final stage of the competition. They were eventually beaten by Carrick Academy, a very well established CashBack 4 Communities funded School of Rugby, who were crowned eventual winners of the inaugural Scottish Power Glasgow Warriors Rugby Championship. In order to qualify for this competition, schools were asked to field male teams at S1 and S2, and a girls’ team at U15 (S1-3). This was the first time that St Thomas Aquinas was able to field a girls’ team, who were immediately successful, being able to field a squad of 12 players and winning the majority of their matches. The large majority of girls at the school do not engage very well in sport and physical activity, so it is hugely pleasing to see that so many girls took up this opportunity. These girls also played in a handful of festivals out with the competition described above. Maintaining a squad of young female rugby players and providing them with ample opportunities to participate will be one of the key targets of the programme next year.

CONCLUSION

Due to the success of the first year of this programme, the school, and Mr McMahon in particular, were very eager for the SoR to continue next year. Unfortunately, Mr Gillies will no longer be at St Thomas to lead the programme, having taken up and opportunity elsewhere, but Mr McMahon has already assigned his replacement as the future lead deliverer of the programme. He will again be well supported by Gary Strain and his team of community coaches, looking to improve upon the first year. This programme has not only seen the players at St Thomas Aquinas improve as rugby players, but has consistently exposed a large group of young people to the values ingrained within the sport, leading to some of these players joining their local club. On top of this, these young people have been engaged in regular physical activity throughout the year, and have taken advantage of the numerous opportunities to participate within a structured, competitive school sport programme. Many of these pupils would not have had the opportunity to compete against a variety of other schools from the West of Scotland, attend professional fixtures and meet the professional players and coaches had it not been for their inclusion within this programme.