Sport during lockdown – how college sports teams have kept going

All school and college lecturers have had to adapt their teaching methods during the Covid-19 pandemic, but perhaps none more so than those teaching sport. As a result, Barking & Dagenham College’s (@BarkingCollege) Rugby Academy has had to get creative to help keep their students playing. 

The Academy would typically have played a number of league and cup fixtures by this point in the calendar, but the global pandemic has put some very interesting and difficult barriers in its way.   

In fact, the restrictions placed on sport have meant that the College’s Rugby teams are not able to play contact games and have had to limit contact related exercises during practice.   

Not wanting their students to miss out, it was time to get creative and come up with a change to the normal set up of lessons. As Scott Murphy, Sports Lecturer at Barking & Dagenham College explains:

“It’s really important to us that we keep the students motivated and to carry on as normal as much as possible during these times.” 

Following government guidelines the College changed up the training sessions. The sessions now concentrate on things such as game play, devising new game strategies, skill-based work and non-contact exercises. 

Before the second lockdown the team also got in touch with a number of other local colleges to arrange a series of non-contact rugby games to help keep all the players engaged and on the pitch as much as possible. 

Scott continues: “These are unusual times but we’re really proud of how our students are dealing with it all. For now we have devised a number of ways to help continue they’re training and development while they are off the pitch and we look forward to getting back to ‘normal’ play as soon as we can.”