Season review Grant Talbot Hawks Community Development Officer

This year the Glasgow Hawks community programme has delivered a 5 / 6 week tag rugby programme of 15 out of our 16 local primary schools. We have run 5 local festival and schools have taken part in regional and national festivals.

We have been working closely with Knightswood Secondary School and St Thomas Aquinas secondary school. This has been very successful and we have sessions planned for next season, our target is to run an s1/2 side out of each school next season. Drumchapel High School will be offered the same support at the start of next season, we have had the support of Glasgow City on this matter.

We have continued our work with the 3 Associate Schools, one afternoon a week is spent helping coach at each school, it is our intentions to continue this next season, GT / PW will meet with each school and discuss our role with them next season.

This year at Hawks midis we have ran teams at Under 13, 14, 15 and 16 age groups, it is our intention to run teams at the same age groups next season and we are also looking at setting up a under 17 / 18 team, we are waiting on the results of the West region leagues to see if these matches are to be played on a Saturday or a Sunday.

This season at Hawks midis we have set up a strength and conditioning programme to get the younger players more physically mature and ready for their rugby development as they get older. The programme would not run if it was not for Andy White and Rory McKay who lead up the programme and have been a great help to myself, also special mention should be made to Duncan Beattie and Glasgow Accies for the use of their facilities.

It has been a very long season for the community programme, but I feel we are now starting to see the benefit of 2 and a half years hard work, if we get the 2 local school playing regular s 1/2 rugby next season, it will be a massive boost to the number of kids playing rugby for Hawks on a Sunday next season. That will be our main focus for next season making sure that 2 out of the 3 local state schools are playing regular rugby fixtures and with some encouragement, also get Drumchapel on board.









Summer Targets

This summer will see Glasgow Hawks run their 3rd summer camp, it will run from Monday 2nd of August until Friday 6th of August, it is on from 09:00 – 16:00 each day.

The target for the camp is 80 children and the age limit is 8 year olds to 16 years old, all midi players and previous children that attend camps should by now all have received an application form and letter inviting them to the camp.

As well as the camp , I will be busy putting together our community programme for next season, this will take a bit of organising between local primary schools and secondary schools.

The last target for the summer will be to put together some grant applications to help grow and improve our community programme.








THE SRU REPORT
INCREASING NUMBERS TAKE UP RUGBY ACROSS SCOTLAND
Thursday, 24 June 2010

- Participation buoyed by increasing state school popularity -
Scottish Rugby has surpassed its strategic target to grow its playing base by over 50%, two years ahead of schedule, pointing to the steady recovery of extra-curricular state school rugby as key to the sport's consistently increasing popularity.
The number of schools regularly playing the game has risen from 184 in 2008 to over 240 in 2010, thanks in part to a successful state school specific programme run in partnership with the Scottish Widows Bank which rewards and supports school staff who give up their time to take extra-curricular rugby while providing increasing amounts of free training kit to the school as the sport develops.
The burgeoning uptake in state schools, particularly S1-S3, is crucial to the rise in the number of people playing the game at all levels where there are now 25,000 under 18 players playing regular rugby compared to 15,000 just four years ago.
Scottish Rugby head of community rugby, Colin Thomson, said: "We have channelled a lot of energy into developing state school rugby and through our regional network supported by sportscotland, in partnership with clubs and local authorities, have delivered over 19,000 rugby sessions to over 180,000 primary and secondary school children in the last year alone.
"Together we fund a network of 75 club development officers around Scotland who develop and grow rugby at all levels in their area. These figures are testimony to their shared success."

Following a development restructure in 2006, Scottish Rugby focussed firmly on growing the game and set the ambitious target of increasing participation from 24,500 to 38,000 by 2012 however today - two years ahead of schedule - the governing body published total playing figures of over 38,500.
However, despite commending the existing partnerships Thomson - himself a former PE teacher - believes that the issue of sport in state schools needs to be addressed to allow rugby to continue to flourish.
"Sport can play a huge role in the development of young people, teaching respect, self-confidence, motivation, discipline and determination, while binding social communities and offering a sense of belonging.
"We've specifically targeted the early secondary S1-S3 age groups - the habit forming years - where we introduce children to the game and offer good pathways to their local club or after school club, but we have to get more buy-in from the education authorities, local and national government.
"This recent growth remains on a fragile footing and will take up to five years to convert into adult participation, providing that children continue to get the opportunity to play rugby year on year.
"If we're serious about sport moving towards the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow we should be serious about state school sport because if we don't do it in our state schools we won't get anywhere.
"It's essential that all children are offered the opportunity to attend extra-curricular and after-school sports clubs throughout their school years. To do so we need more support and recognition for the teachers taking after school sport in order to build a healthy and active culture within every state school."
Following the success, Scottish Rugby will now review its strategic objectives and renew the targets for positive growth for 2012.
Scottish Widows Bank Rugby Champions scheme
Run in partnership with Scottish Widows Bank, the initiative aims to increase the number and amount of rugby played in state secondary schools while rewarding the dedicated school staff who give up their spare time to take extra-curricular rugby.
The programme operates by rewarding the school's registered rugby champion with personal coaching kit, and provides the school with specialist rugby equipment for coaching and training; additional equipment is then provided as rugby develops at the school in accordance with levels of participation.

This article was posted on 25-Jun-2010, 10:35 by Hugh Barrow.