Down Teachers Off To Poland For Tag Rugby Trip

Three teachers from Moneyrea Primary School in County Down – Jenny Daly, Roy Greer and Christine Floyd – will travel to Gliwice in Poland next Saturday to teach Tag rugby to pupils at Szkola Podstawowa.

The October 20 trip to Poland is part is part of an ongoing partnership between Moneyrea Primary School and schools in Spain, Turkey and Poland.

Last year the schools were learning about traditional dances and teachers from Moneyrea taught Scottish country dancing to pupils in Poland and Spain. The pupils from Moneyrea then had opportunity to learn and perform dances from Poland, Spain and Turkey.

This year the focus is on national sports and playground games. The Moneyrea staff have chosen rugby as their national sport and during their week in Poland, they will be teaching the basics of Tag rugby to a class of 11-year-olds.

This will be a completely new experience for the Polish children and at the end of the week they will play a demonstration tournament in front of the rest of the school and their parents.

The teachers from Moneyrea will be leaving a full Tag rugby kit in the Polish school, complete with rugby balls courtesy of Vi Sport. Other goodies will be distributed to the pupils from Sport Northern Ireland and the Ulster Branch of the IRFU.

Moneyrea PS is grateful to its sponsors for their generosity in helping to make this unique teaching opportunity a very special experience for the Polish children.

The staff are particularly grateful to the Ulster Branch for the assistance of their Development Officers in planning the teaching programme. CRDO Jarrett Truscott and YDO Matt Slator, who has previously coached at the school, sat down with the teachers to talk them through some ideas and gave them advice on what skills and drills they could do with the kids throughout their week in Poland.

The Ulster Branch is delighted that Jarrett and Matt were able help with putting together this teaching programme for what they feel is an extremely worthwhile event and would like to wish all three teachers the very best of luck.