Secondary school without Rugby

You said up thread that your current school hasn’t proposed anything that “corresponds” to you DS’s academic level yet”.
So I’m guessing MCS Winchester and Eton et al have not been suggested to you. If you’re at a well established prep with a track record of sending pupils to these types of schools and they are not recommending them to you then you need to listen. They will be reluctant to support your application including providing a suitable reference if they don’t feel your DS’s arent really suitable.

Secondly Winchester which doesn’t do any rugby and offers lots of alternative sports and has no major or minor sports and in fact it’s possible to do no sport (so may not provide suffient adrenaline fuelled sport for you) requires registration in yr 5 at the latest.

I’ve not read back through the thread how old are your DS’s and would you consider full boarding?

MCS is first and foremost a hot house, with sport and other stuff pretty difficult to get into as it’s very over subscribed.

It’s a shame you don’t have the flexibility to move west to put Millfield in the “running”.

Westwood Abingdon school is another option. MCS could be regarded as a hothouse simply because it is one of the most academic schools.

Wellington is a school which is very competitive about its rugby and has rugby scholarships.
UCS is in London but you say that you want to avoid London?

Did you just pick these schools out of a hat?
What are you actually looking for in a school?
Those schools have very little in common,be that sporting,academic,pupil make up,importance of boarding etc..
Perhaps if you still want to play down the rugby,then you might want to rethink Wellington....lol...

Rugby huge at Wellington. Also pretty academic these days tho.

Rather confused as to why you want to discourage your children from doing something they obviously enjoy.

Sadly people drown swimming

But participation in a structured swimming club actually decreases the risk of drowning whilst swimming elsewhere rather than increases it.

Injuries are possible in all areas of life but it is also possible not to play a sport that requires so much direct full weight impact on the head and neck. Hope you find a school that doesn't play rugby OP.

Thanks for the info clearly more research needs to be done.

Rugby should be played in mud IMO

There is some information here. I have read that plastic pitches are being ripped up in Holland, and as I have said earlier, a study is being conducted by an American University (can't remember which one).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_turf–cancer_hypothesis

So clubs that have ripped up £500000 3G pitches have replaced them with grass ?

Or non cancer causing 3G 4G 5G plastic pitches ?

I described it earlier as a 'concern'. It's up to the individual to decide if this is something which worries them or not.

numbereightyone

So it's rumour and supposition then. and more scaremongering

Not yet Lord but a big study into it is being carried out at the moment and some people have taken a precautionary approach by ripping up existing 3G pitches.

There is no proof whatsoever that rubber crumbs from 3G pitches cause cancer.

There is a concern about the rubber used on 3G pitches. Iirc it's to do with the fact they use recycled tyres and they are potentially carcinogenic.

God, we must be shit parents to Ds1, not only have we allowed him to play both codes of rugby, including nearly 2 years non stop, but he also got knocked down crossing the road outside our house. luckily only cuts and bruises. But that's the only time, we both feared for his safety.
nocampinghere Ds1 only really trains on 3/4G pitches. Always wears skins on his legs and arms whilst training. 3G we are sick of rubber balls everywhere, 4G he hates, sand based means as a tackler like him loses elbow and knee skin a lot. He played amateur rugby league on 3G pitches and luckily League allows skins to be worn during matches, because after a couple of matches all players where wearing them or their mums tights, until they could buy/get hold of skins, Not sure how Union would work as can't wear skins in matches. Ds1 loves winter rugby, because he is the tackler and the ground is usually wet and muddy, so soft. When he played League, so summer, skins where worn every match, due to hard grounds.
welly possibly private school kids in Hull/E Yorkshire are different to Harrow/Eton etc rugby players, I wouldn't have a clue, but I have learnt on here most parents, who send their boys there vehemently disagree with that idea, so won.t go there.
Except to say in the 9 years Ds1 has played League and union, he has played with, in his 3 different clubs, over 130 different boys and girls. 6 have been privately educated, 4%, over 45 have come from council estates (no private schools) so 35%. the rest are just working and lower middle class kids at fairly rough state schools, so about 95%.
So maybe you should just avoid rugby in independent schools and play rugby in either code supported clubs. Our comprehensive school coach admits only reason they won so many titles is that school year had 23 players who all played together at 2 outside clubs originally, so nothing to do with the school, It just got the glory

Regarding 3G pitches they can cause the odd burn here and there with a high speed impact. The key is maintenance. They need to be regularly filled or topped up with the rubber particles made from recycled tyres which give the pitch some cushioning and bounce effect on impact.

If the pitches are not maintained and topped up with rubber this is when they can become hard, slippy and dangerous. A 3G rugby pitch has different characteristics to a 3G football pitch and has different regs. Games are never postponed and washing machines last longer.

Hi OP.
Just wanted to suggest at some point you need to include your DS's in this decision-they are old enough to engage in the process and may resent you-even if you're doing it for what you feel are the right reasons.
I had 2 very passionate rugby boys-one voluntarily quit rugby to row full time.
I would def suggest looking for a school that rows...

haven't RTFT just skimmed it but those of you with dcs playing rugby, what do you think of the new all weather 3G surfaces being used rather than grass? They're quite a bit harder imo...

There is no comparison between children being hit by cars and those injured playing rugby. Rugby is a minority sport played primarily by boys. Most children have to cross a road at some time or another.