Champion Schools
rugby league competition between English schools
The Champion Schools tournament (known as the Carnegie Champion Schools due to sponsorship) is a full contact knock-out rugby league football competition open to every secondary school in England, Scotland and Wales and is the largest rugby league tournament in the world. The competition is operated by the Rugby Football League (RFL) and the English Schools Rugby League (ESRL). There are competitions for boys and girls in school year groups 7-11 and pupils aged, 11–16.
The competition began in 1981 and was re-launched in 2002, by the RFL in partnership with English Schools Rugby League. The ESRL credit the Champion Schools tournament with having "rejuvenated schools rugby". The RFL believe "this competition has played a vital role in introducing Rugby League to an ever increasing number of young people throughout the United Kingdom". The Champion Schools tournament is the largest knock-out rugby league tournament in the world.
Most of the finals were held at RAF Uxbridge up until 2009, in 2010 and 2011 at Hillingdon sports and athletics complex. Then in 2012, to avoid a clash with the London Olympics, the finals moved north to Odsal Stadium, Bradford and then since 2013, at Richmond athletic stadium (home of London Scottish RFU). The Year 7 boys finalists however have maintained the privilege of playing the curtain raiser at Wembley ahead of the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final.
The public source identifies “Champion Schools” as rugby league competition between English schools. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Champion, Schools and rugby.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5070023. The first chronological checks are 1981, 2002, 2009 and 2010.
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This entry incorporates text from “Champion Schools” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.