Engage! Builds on success for third year

A project set up to introduce rugby and its values into schools and communities continues to reach new heights following a third successful year.

Coventry Sports Foundations Engage! project which delivers values based educational and sport programmes to promote rugby’s core values of teamwork, respect, integrity, enjoyment and discipline has reached more than 10,000 young people in the past year across its range of programmes.

This year saw the launch of the Engage! Values Programme, a free programme which is designed to improve children’s understanding of the core values both inside and outside the classroom through character education.

The initiative has been rolled out in 26 schools, with 1,370 pupils completing the programme, which is available to all 87 primary schools across Coventry.

A further 2,500 schoolchildren took part in a grassroots initiative commissioned by Rugby Borough Council.

The pupils from 42 schools in Rugby and Coventry took part in a three-week programme, which combined visits to the interactive World Rugby Hall of Fame with tag rugby games also taking place.

The past year also saw the conclusion of three academic years of Wasps Community programmes, including Aviva Tackling Numbers, Something to Chew On and Rugby 4 All, with the programmes reaching more than 7,000 young people across 119 schools.

The success of these programmes has provided a boost for the City of Rugby project, which aims to make Coventry a world leader at every level of the sport by 2023, with more than 60,000 people of all ages in the city and surrounding areas having either participated in or watched a format of rugby-related activity.

There has also been great participation in city-wide events such as Coventry Sports Week, the Rugby Football League 4 Nations and Coventry Bears Bears 5’s programme.

Tom Clift, Programme Manager at Engage!, said:

It’s been a hugely successful year for Engage! across all of our programmes and we are continuing to see a growth in participation in Coventry.

We are delighted with the early success of our Engage! Values Programme and would like to encourage more schools in the city to take advantage of the free sessions we are offering.

There are many people interested in rugby now and aware of the impact its core values can have, it is our challenge to ensure they stick with the sport and take as much away from learning the core values as possible.

Working with our partners we are looking forward to further expanding our offering over the next 12 months and engaging more young people in the wider community.

For more information on Engage! please visit www.engagecoventry.com