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Schools Touch Championships 2025
Try Sports is delighted to announce that the 2025 School Touch Championships will be taking place over seven regions from March 21st 2025.
The Championships will be held in the West, North East, Midlands, South West, South East, North West and the East, with the finals taking place on June 27th 2025. Dates for each region can be found here.
A delivery partner of the England Touch Association, Try Sports has significantly expanded the 2025 School Touch Championships compared to previous years, responding to demand for participation and positive feedback received from teachers.
The tournament is perfect for students of all abilities, whether you are new to Touch or a regular. The inclusive competitions feature Boys, Girls and Mixed categories across two age groups (Year 7/8 and Year 9/10) and provides a fun, supportive environment for everyone to thrive.
The festival style event will ensure each team plays 4-6 games during the course of the day. Teams consist of up to 14 players with unlimited rolling substitutions to ensure everyone is provided with the opportunity to play, learn and enjoy.
The School Touch Championships 2024 was a huge success, with 1,212 children taking part across 100 teams from 70 different schools. Of the 1,212, 52.5% were boys and 47.5% girls, showing just how inclusive for all genders the game of touch is.
Being simple and fun, Touch is the most popular non-contact form of rugby, and has the highest retention rate of participants between grassroots and the elite level of the game. The game of Touch has been used to develop several elite level rugby players, many of which are present in the recent All Blacks and Australia Rugby Union and Rugby League squads.
Touch is also having more of an impact on domestic talent pathways, with Team GB 7s players, Lauren Torley and Emma Mundy, both having trained with England's High Performance squads in recent years.
In 2022 Touch was accepted into the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) programme, with all-important BUCS points available to the universities who finish top of the competition at the end of the season. From Exeter to Edinburgh, universities across the UK are embracing the sport, as are international students who have grown up playing Touch in countries such as Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia.
Then in 2023, England Touch was formally recognised as a national governing body for Touch Rugby by Sport England, recognition of the time and investment made in the sport’s structures, and the role England Touch plays in representing the nation on the international stage.
Try Sports’ leadership includes Dom Tripp and Zan Hudson, who have captained England’s Men’s and Women’s Open teams at multiple World Cups and European Champions, and Andy Penniceard, who has been a spearhead for coaching youth players at club, regional and national level for many years.
England Touch General Manager, Sammie Phillips, says: “Touch is the simplest and most enjoyable form of non-contact rugby there is. The 2024 Touch World Cup, held in Nottingham, demonstrated just how exciting and engaging the sport is, and it was tremendous to have more than 1,000 youngsters from schools across the East Midlands join us for coaching sessions and to watch the World Cup themselves.
“The sport aids the development of non-contact rugby skills, from the basics of catching and passing, to advanced skills such as ball manipulation and coordination, which can all be transferred across different codes of rugby. Touch also enables an individual to develop and enhance other core skills, such as teamwork, creativity and decision making, just yet another reason why the sport is becoming more and more important within the schools programme.
“With competitions at all levels from schools, through to British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS), to organising the teams which represent England on the international stage, England Touch has a pathway for any child and young person to reach their ambition.
“The Schools Touch Championships is the perfect way to begin your Touch journey., Dom, Zan and Andy have done brilliant work to promote Youth Touch, and we encourage everyone to take part in this competition.”
Dom Tripp from Try Sports added: “Last year was a great success with our School Championships, with plenty of enjoyable experiences for the kids. We had loads of positive feedback from parents and teachers, we can’t wait for the 2025 championships!”
To register your team please head to www.try-sports.com
