Rugby using HITZ for positive futures

As part of National Apprenticeship Week 2023, Premiership Rugby is shining a spotlight on individuals from its award winning HITZ education and employability programme to demonstrate how rugby is helping create a new generation of apprentices.

Helping young people to secure apprenticeships is a key objective of Premiership Rugby through the HITZ programme, which has been running since 2008. It is on this programme that young people can find the steppingstones to employment, by gaining qualifications and learning new skills which make them more work ready.

Rob Baxter, Director of Rugby at Exeter Chiefs is a huge advocate of apprenticeships and says:

“The HITZ environment brings these young people out of themselves to enable them to learn new skills. What they then need is a chance from local businesses to show them what they are capable of.”

Callum Pope is representing Exeter Chiefs in the HITZ programme and his story is an inspiration to all. Having previously battled with severe social anxiety before joining the HITZ programme in 2019, Pope’s stellar work throughout led to an apprenticeship with SCL Education Group and subsequent employment as a teacher at HITZ.

He said: “HITZ was a second chance to create a life for myself. With support around me, I was able to say it’s my life and it’s my responsibility to make this better for myself.”