Our mission

We aim to: 

  • Empirically evaluate the outcomes of, and attitudes toward, injuries and sport collision through academic scholarship.
  • Educate parents and sport stakeholders as to the necessity of removing contact or collision sports, in order to reduce the risk of injury for children.
  • Advocating changes in policy, organisation, governance and attitude regarding the impacts of collision in sport for children.
At the moment, we are currently focused upon removing the tackle from rugby union and rugby league within the school physical education curriculum. 

What we have been doing:

March 2016: Open letter to government Ministers, Chief Medical Officers and Children's Commissioners. 

June 2016: “Injury risk and a tackle ban in youth Rugby Union: reviewing the evidence and searching for targeted, effective interventions. A critical review” by World Rugby's Ross Tucker, Martin Raftery and Evert Verhagen.  

July 2016: Chief Medical Officer's and the Physical Activity Expert Group responded to our Open Letter. 

September 2016: Presentation at British Science Festival in Swansea.

October 2016: Report to England Rugby Football Schools Union Governance Sub-Committee. 

March 2017: Presentation at Politics in Sport Association conference in Manchester. 

July 2017: “Evidence in support of the call to ban the tackle and harmful contact in school rugby: a response to World Rugby” published in BJSM. 

July 2017: Response by Pollock, Anderson, White and Kirkwood to Chief Medical Officers 

September 2017: Meeting the Rt Hon Damian Collins (Chair of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport). 

October 2017: Presentation at TEDx Kingston-Upon-Thames 

January 2018: Letter to Chief Medical Officer's 

BJSM Podcast: Would school rugby be better if collisions and tackles were banned? Prof Allyson PollockWould school rugby be better if collisions and tackles were banned? Professor Allyson Pollock
"Protect children, remove contact"