Hi, Im Mr Sheppard and I am the coordinator of our School of Rugby (SoR) Programme at Stonelaw High School, and I feel with so many new faces in the building that it is vitally important that I update you all on the aims and ambitions of our SoR.

Several years ago, I was approached by some of our S1 pupils who were looking for an alternative to football during our summer choice block. It’s fair to say that these pupils were not all the most athletic and certainly wouldn’t have been first pick for the school football team. I made the decision to introduce these pupils to rugby and they immediately fell in love with the sport. Within months, we had played our first match, taking an absolute hammering from a bigger, stronger, Uddingston side. I fondly recall one former pupil who shall remain nameless lining up a tackle directly in front of Ms McLachlan and myself. He was set for his big moment of glory, bringing down Uddy’s top player only for him to have a last minute change of heart and kindly move out of the way to let the boy in for his 7^th try of the match. The boys were not disheartened by this defeat and they continued to develop their skills both at school, with several also taking steps to club rugby at local club Cambuslang. It filled me with great pride to hear that several of these pupils recently made their Cambuslang first 15 debut.

I quickly realised that rugby was a sport open to all no matter your shape, size and speed. We had established a team from all spectrums of the cohort: gender, sexuality, popularity mattered not a jot on the rugby field. On the back of this, I approached Ms McLachlan and proposed that I set up a SoR for pupils to develop their rugby skills and teach them our school values through rugby. Our first year was very much a baptism of fire, with many hurdles thrown up and overcome throughout the year until Covid-19 arrived in March and put an end to our progress. Our 2^nd year also proved very challenging due to the implications of Covid-19. Trials were held for S1 and places were offered. However, restrictions meant we were unable to offer rugby on the curriculum and we did not commence until May 2021 offering our S1 and S2 pupils their SoR experience after school as opposed to during curriculum time. The number of pupils attending was excellent and set us up perfectly for the return of SoR to the curriculum in August this year. The number of S1 pupils expressing an interest in joining the programme this year was phenomenal, just shy of 50 pupils attending the trial. All pupils were offered an opportunity to participate in the programme and the majority are still involved at this stage.

I'd like to share with you the aims of our SoR programme, of which there are many. Firstly, we aim to teach our pupils the school values through rugby. Let's start with ambition, a value that every pupil who signs up to the SoR must possess. Whether that is the ambition to learn a new sport, the ambition to make a tackle, the ambition to become the best rugby player you possibly can be, the ambition to make it as a professional rugby player or even an ambition to one day represent their country, all of our pupils have ambitions at different levels, and perhaps many of their ambitions develop throughout their time in the programme.

Commitment is an absolute essential for all young people participating in the SoR. Commitment comes in and is demonstrated in many forms such as bringing their kit every week, not missing a training session, committing to a tackle, attending after school catch sessions or committing to taking the next step in their rugby journey at club level. When speaking of commitment, it would be remiss of me to not mention Christian Kerr in S3. Throughout first year Christian, was very unsure of whether SoR was the right environment for him, he regularly spoke of leaving the programme. Thankfully, Christian stuck through the hard times and recently demonstrated his worth to the team in the match against Jordanhill. Christian demonstrated a commitment in the tackle which he had never previously possessed. As a coaching staff, we were very proud of his performance and the development in his confidence and skill set since starting in S1. Well done Christian!

It is difficult to measure an individual's loyalty, particularly with a SoR programme that is still very much in its infancy. However, recent correspondence with a couple of former senior pupils who started their rugby journey at Stonelaw demonstrated to me that loyalty truly does exist. Upon meeting them their very first question, was “how is the rugby going at the school?” The 2nd question from one of them was, “can I come in on my days off from Uni and help coach the SoR? This, alongside the commitment shown by our current senior pupil helpers, shows the extent to which loyalty does exist. We now have a team of current and former senior pupils who regularly give up their free time to help with our programme. In the past 2 weeks, Euan Beattie, Oliver Stevenson and Robbie Keith have all assisted with after school matches.

Trust, hard to earn and easily lost, is another value which we regularly try to instil into our pupils. Unfortunately, some pupils have missed out on the opportunity to train or participate in matches as we have been unable to trust them across the school. Whilst this may be a difficult lesson for our pupils, we believe that it will be beneficial over time. On a positive note, the trust that I can place in many of our pupils is a credit to them. Pupils have displayed trust in so many ways, be it through trusting their teammates to practice tackling on them, trusting their teammates to take care of the ball during important phases of play or by trusting them with equipment, to leading warmups or to always displaying the values of rugby.

Finally, respect- a value ingrained into the heart of rugby. As SoR lead, I am forever speaking to our pupils about the importance of respect for themselves, each other, the coach, the officials, equipment, and the school. It fills me with a sense of pride to see our pupils representing our school with so much respect, and we will continue to ensure that this value is always embodied.