A summery of two years of hard work, introducing touch rugby into Elementary School.
Last year I made a decision to put touch rugby on the elementary curriculum for grades 3 and 4. The school plays rugby in middle school (MS) and in high school (HS). I coach the boys JV rugby team (contact) in HS and the boys MS touch team.Last year in G3 I possibly set my sights too high, and introduced the full game from scratch. This proved to be really hard work. The concept that you need to give constant support from behind the ball carrier, blew a lot of students minds... The G4s grasped it a bit better, but it still wasn't plain sailing.
Reflecting on the units, I made some changes this year.
Rather than dropping the G3's straight into the full game, we focused on ball handling skills. There are loads of games to be played which really develop their ball handling/carrying skills.
A couple of favorites included:
Snakes: Split into groups of 4. The snake moves around the court/field, the front player scores a try by placing the ball on the ground, the second player picks up and leads the snake for about 5-10 paces before scoring another try (I encourage placing the ball firmly on the floor, so it doesn't roll away. and bending the knees to pick up the ball with both hands). After scoring a try the players must join another snake, with the idea of keeping all the snakes equal sizes.
Pass & Run: In pairs, pass to each other while moving around the court/field. The player that places the ball on the ground first, runs! the partner rushes to pick up the ball to give chase, their objective is to tag the runner with the ball.
Rugby Tag: The taggers carry a rugby ball each (both hands). Their objective is to tag as many runners with the ball that they can. Once tagged the runners collect a ball themselves and join the taggers. The winners are the last runners left.
Finally, the game the students all love is...
British bulldog/Shrimps and Minnows: This game is great for getting the students in the middle (taggers/tacklers) thinking defensively, making that line across the court in order to stop the runners breaking through. In preparation for touch rugby, I always insist the defense (students in the middle) to be back 5 paces, to walk backwards (face the runners), and to create an almost impenetrable defensive wall. Once they have those concepts, having them work as a team, slowly pushing forwards to squeeze the runners space is great development for the future games. The runners on the other hand work on their skills of avoiding being tagged: changing speed, changing direction etc.
With the G3's this year we never got to play a full game, but we did play lots and lots of fun and fast games that developed their hand-eye coordination, their concept of team and their communication skills.
For the Grade 4's I start with a couple of the ball handling games, and of course British bulldog, but by the 2nd or 3rd lesson we are looking at the concept of support and we are out on the field playing touch rugby.
We start the lesson with a brief handling drill, but the majority of the time is spent playing.
This year, touch rugby has really taken off! The students are playing hard and learning fast!
Below are collages from my three G4 classes this year.
