Latest
News |
Leeds Met students are doing just Grand
22/10
The winning squad of the Tetley Super League Grand Final Championship at Old Trafford, which saw Leeds Rhinos beat local rivals the Bradford Bulls on Saturday 16 October, included seven students from Leeds Metropolitan University.
The students, including Rhinos’ Captain Kevin Sinfield and ‘Man of the Match’ Matt Diskin, combine a gruelling training schedule with studying for degrees on the Individual Programme of Study at Leeds Met.
This flexible approach to learning is attributed to the excellent work being done at Leeds Met to attract students from a wider variety of backgrounds. Recognising that increasingly students combine work with studying is key to the success of Leeds Met, which has 41,000 students studying at locations throughout the Yorkshire region.
The University’s partnership with professional sport at Headingley Carnegie Stadium is based on Leeds Met’s long-standing reputation for sport through its Carnegie College, founded in 1933, and now the Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education.
Outstanding professional players have coached Leeds Met students ever since. One of its more recent alumni, the Scotland and British Lions’ player and coach, Ian McGeechan, received an honorary doctorate from Leeds Met this summer and the University continues this tradition of involvement with world-class sport today.
An increasing number of professional players are students at Leeds Met, including seven Leeds Rhinos’ squad players, Leeds Tykes’ winger Tom Biggs and Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s Ismail Dawood. Leeds Met and Leeds Rugby now share a rugby union coach in the former Welsh international Colin Stephens. The Rhinos carry Leeds Met Carnegie on their sleeves and the Tykes have the same name and logo on their sleeves. Students benefit in many other ways from our partnership. International students were welcomed at the cricket ground at the start of this academic year and taken to a rugby game. Many students work part-time with Headingley Experience. A Dutch student wrote last year to the Yorkshire Post thanking the Rhinos for her opportunities to work with local school-pupils in widening participation.
The University would like to develop further facilities in partnership with the stadium. The University also helps other professional sporting clubs in the region, for instance in helping Bradford City AFC when they seemed to be in difficulties during the summer.
