Society Training & Development

Training Events 

Members training is held on the last Monday of every month. Before Christmas this will take place at Vipers RFC. After Christmas we move to Belgrave RFC. 

There will be additional training sessions during the season at a venue to be confirmed

7pm-9pm on the following dates for the 2025-2026 season: 

Referees on the development programme are expected to attend all sessions but the training events are open to everyone- including non-society members who might referee for their clubs or schools. Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to attend any sessions. 

Additional training may also be announced during the season.

If any clubs would like some specific training we are happy to help out with this and can attend club training sessions.

Grading & Development 

Grading Committee – Process Summary

General

The Full Grading Sub Committee meet twice yearly to review all active referees.

The meetings are December and April/May, to give mid season and end of season reviews.

At the last meeting in Dec 2024, all 71 referees were reviewed with only four being re-graded.

From these statistics alone, it should be noted that every ref is considered but few are re-graded.

Points considered

Primary measures are assessment reports and coach and mentor feedback.

We seek to assess each referee at least once per season to ensure safety/ capability, and if the referee wishes to be considered for re-grading, they can request additional assessment. This is subject to the availability of our limited number of assessors and is not the sole indicator for re-grading.

It should also be noted that re-grading can mean going to a lower level as well as being moved up. This can be at the referee's request, or performance/ fitness, or player safety.

In conjunction with these, there are many other measures considered including:-

The amount of appointed games refereed recorded by the society.

Referee fitness. (Referee appointments will prioritise those having passed fitness test).

Club, player and peer feedback.

Training sessions and members meetings attendance.

BRONCO/ fitness test results.

Ability.

This feedback can relate to management, communication skills and application of laws, and also side issues such as dress standards, punctuality, along with feedback to players & coaches post match.

Also considered are the refs own wishes indicated, for example, happy as I am, want to move up, or indeed, want less demanding games.

Summary

Re-grading is not a ‘by right’ affair and is seen by the Committee as a major reward for consistent outstanding performance. Being good in our competitive Society is not enough, one must be at least ‘very good’ at their level for consideration.

The majority of fixtures within Leicestershire are at levels 9 and 10, and the majority of our referees are at this level too.

The Committee consider every referee at every re-grading meeting and a lot of time is given to this task to ensure a fair review for all.

To be successfully re-graded will be the result of hard work, attention to detail, personal review and self management, along with the necessary abilities to perform at the next level

Peter Bower – Hon Grading Sec  July 2025

The current grading is attached here to view

2024/2025 Half Season Grading Results