HIGH school pupils have played a major role in designing new shirts being donated to their schools by the official kit supplier to the England rugby team.
The shirts are to be created for rugby teams at Hartford High School and the University of Chester Academy Northwich (UCAN).
They will be manufactured by Stockport-based firm Canterbury, and the final designs emerged from workshops involving the company and pupils from each school.
The workshops at Sale Rugby Club were part of the All Schools programme, which was launched in 2012 by the Rugby Football Union in partnership with the Rugby Football Foundation.
The programme is aimed at helping more state secondary school children play rugby and to encourage new players to join local clubs.
Attending the workshops were Elis Vickery, Harry Naylor and Harvey Hemmings from Hartford High, and Meg Perry, Joshua Octubre and Jessica Thomas from UCAN.
They pupils learned about the history and heritage of the rugby shirt, and a Canterbury designer talked them through the process of designing a shirt, as well as the key elements to consider when creating their own design.
The Hartford pupils are rugby ambassadors for the school, which ran a year nine competition asking pupils to create designs in their art lessons.
“The three lads whittled the designs down to 20 and then a top three, which they took to the workshop,” said Hartford High head of PE Gareth Boys.
“They put in many hours of work to prepare for the workshop.”
The design which emerged could incorporate the school’s house colours of red, yellow, green and blue.
More than 200 shirt designs were put forward by UCAN pupils in a joint PE and art department project.
Head of PE Geraldine Lynch said: “The new rugby shirt will be worn with pride by our students.
“It’s been fantastic working with the coaches from Northwich RFC and to see the positive impact introducing rugby has had on the students taking part in lessons. ”
Meg Perry is part of Cheshire U15 girls’ rugby team, and coaches younger students at UCAN’s after school rugby club.
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