Primary school children across Winchester enjoyed the annual Winchester Primary Schools Tag Rugby Tournament courtesy of our Sport students who organised the event as part of their studies. On the day, 260 year 5 and 6 children (aged 9-11) from 14 schools made up a total of 20 teams. Winning honours went to St Peters Primary School who will go forward to represent the Winchester area in the RFU Hampshire Games in June.
Organising an event is an important part of the Level 3 BTEC Diploma in Coaching and Development and the students were required to deliver every aspect of the tournament from sourcing a venue and equipment (courtesy of Winchester Rugby Club) to refereeing on the day which they were trained to do following a session with Neil McGovern from the RFU.
The event was given a Rugby World Cup theme with participating schools allocated a country to represent and asked to make flags and bunting to provide a festive feel. Tents were decorated and one school had even learnt the Scottish National Anthem and wore kilts!
On the day, our students ran a tight ship – refereeing, collecting scores, timekeeping and keeping the scoreboard up to date. They were ably assisted by Year 10 and 11 Sports Leaders from local secondary schools Henry Beaufort and Westgate.
The event is being hailed a huge success with the 260 participating children learning how to play tag rugby. They were of course all suitably pleased with their awards and goody bags courtesy of sponsors Subway, First Wessex, Tesco and Sparsholt College.