Helping young people like David to achieve through RugbyWorks

David is one of the young people on our programme from Newhaven in London. Now he is aiming for a career in I.T.

Throughout 2019 our programme has been continuing to support over 550 young people across England and Wales that need detailed and bespoke support to enable them to thrive.

One such example is David. David is 15 years old and is currently at Newhaven School, a PRU based in Greenwich, London. David is one of a number of our cohort from Newhaven who were excluded from mainstream education. It was at Newhaven where David joined the RugbyWorks programme.

“Things didn’t work out for me when I was at my old school. I made a few mistakes and started hanging out with the wrong crowd and started to mess things up, so I eventually ended up at Newhaven, where I’ve been for a year now,” David began.

“What I like about the RugbyWorks sessions is that they are interactive, and it really doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, you can jump in and just have a bit of fun.”

Our programme has been a resounding success for David and his fellow classmates at Newhaven, with many of the pupils joining in and approving of the weekly touch-rugby sessions.

“Unlike other sessions we do here, there are lot more people involved so you can tell that a lot of the students like what RugbyWorks are doing and I like the fact that everyone is more involved with these sessions. The mentors make it fun as well which is why a lot of people come along. I think they trust them to bring something enjoyable to the school day.”

David has built a rapport with our mentors at Newhaven, Dan Field and Harvey Young, which he believes has helped him enjoy the sessions that we host at Newhaven.

“I think the mentors are also good because you can talk to them about stuff which perhaps you couldn’t say to the teachers. We get along with them and trust them to give us advice, whether it’s rugby or about jobs in the future.”

But it’s not just rugby where our programme focuses on. With the aim of getting as many people on our programme into education and future career opportunities, we also provide CV workshops and Career Taster Days for our young people to experience. Thanks to attending one of our Career Taster Days, David is starting to think about what he would like to do following his time on the programme.

“Recently I went on a visit with RugbyWorks where we learned about internships and we also visited Google, where we got to speak to people who work there, which was different but fun. They spoke to us about how they got their jobs there and it is something that I would be interested in doing one day.

“In the future I want to do work focusing on computers and I.T, so going to Google really helped me think about that! But I am also interested in going into engineering as well – so they are my two main options for now!”

We wouldn’t be able to support young people like David without your generous support.