"You Make the Call" Secondary School Officiating Course

King Country Rugby and WILSS (Waikato Institute for Leadership and Sport Studies) offer an NZQA unit standard based programme that dovetails into your sport’s current officiating programme (Rugby). Participants that complete the programme will gain Unit Standard 31388 - Carry out pre-event preparation and apply the rules of sport while officiating sports events - 31388.pdf (nzqa.govt.nz). This unit standard is worth 10 credits at level 3 and can be counted towards a secondary school students NCEA. WILSS works closely with the student’s school to ensure this credit is recorded with NZQA.

The course is broken into two sections, classroom based and an on-field test. 

The classroom based section consists of two days learning the fundamentals of Rugby Refereeing.  The students will learn the laws of Rugby which will be broken down to the following: 

  • Re-Starts
  • Scrums
  • Line Outs
  • Tackle/Ruck/Maul
  • In Goal and Scoring
  • Foul Play
  • Risk and Injury Prevention

The On-field test is when the student referees a minimum of three rugby matches involving either primary, intermediate or even high school students. The students could officiate a game of 15 a side rugby, 7’s rugby and even Ripper Rugby. The referees will be coached and supported by an experience rugby referee coach during the on-field test. This is the last part to be signed off before the students can gain their Level 3 credits. 

The “You make the call course” is open to any Year 11,12,13 students.​​​​​​​

If your school has any students that want to undertake in the "You make the Call" course please get in touch with

King Country Rugby Referee Education Officer

Jamie Bell reo.cdo@kingcountryrugby.co.nz