Students from Little Stanion Primary School will take to the hallowed Twickenham turf on Saturday afternoon, representing the Saints in an Aviva Tackling Numbers competition.
The innovative scheme is giving almost 150 children from across the country the chance to take part in a game of tag rugby during half-time of the Aviva Premiership Rugby Final.
The children have been selected after taking part in Aviva Tackling Numbers, which is delivered in 240 primary schools every year by all 12 Premiership Rugby clubs.
Through the programme at least 38,880 children will be introduced to maths in a fun and engaging way and exposed to numbers outside of the regular classroom environment, with Premiership Rugby coaches delivering lessons.
Around 90 per cent of teachers involved in delivering Aviva Tackling Numbers, rated it as effective at teaching national curriculum numeracy, and 94% would recommend the teaching resources to a colleague.
Premiership Rugby’s Matthew Maguire, programme manager for Aviva Tackling Numbers, is confident having the league’s star players helping to teach maths is making the subject more accessible than ever before.
“We have had great success with children engaging with maths, where they hadn’t before, and it reflects well with Aviva’s aim of teaching financial literacy,” he said.
“By using professional rugby players and coaches, we can show them that a game of rugby is using maths for 80 minutes.
“You’re not only using maths to travel to a game but to buy snacks when you’re there. It shows them that maths and numbers are all around you and have real world applications.”
Each of the 12 Premiership Rugby clubs have organised an Aviva Tackling Numbers tag rugby tournament in the last year and selected a school from their area to attend the Twickenham showpiece on May 28th.
Nearly 150 pupils will be taking part in the tag rugby matches, which will serve as a celebration of the Aviva Tackling Numbers programme.
Debbie Bullock, Community Investment Manager at Aviva UK, said: “As the main sponsor, we were looking for a community element to our sponsorship and the Tackling Numbers programme played very strongly with our financial services industry.
“Teaching children about numbers is building the foundations for better financial skills later in life.
“It is great that the clubs can deliver the programme and we’ve had brilliant feedback from teachers who’ve said the resources they’re using are great.
“The resources are also available to download so even if your school isn’t in an area covered by a rugby club you can still access the programme.”
“We’ve been really happy to hear of the teachers recommending the resources to colleagues and the number of schools we’ve been able to support in just two years is brilliant.”
AVIVA TACKLING NUMBERS SCHOOLS AT TWICKENHAM ON MAY 28TH
Abbeymead Primary School – Gloucester
Costessey Junior School – Leicester Tigers
Finstall First School – Worcester Warriors
Hayward’s Primary School – Exeter Chiefs
Holy Family Catholic Primary School – Wasps
King’s Lodge Community School – Bath Rugby
Little Stanion Primary School – Northampton Saints
Nascot Wood Junior School – Saracens
St John’s R.C Primary School – Sale Sharks
St Mary’s Primary – London Irish
St Mary’s RC Primary School – Newcastle Falcons
St Michael and St Martin Primary – Harlequins
