Teachers Aide
There are 18 players involved in the 2011 Teachers Aide program. The schools involved in the program include: La Perouse Primary School, Alexandria Park Primary School and Green Square School.
The 18 players involved are: Team La Perouse - Dave Tyrell, Nathan Peats, Dylan Farrell, Blake Judd, John Sutton and Chris McQueen. Team Alexandria Park – Beau Falloon, Matt Mundine, Fetuli Talanoa, Edward Pettybourne, Nathan Merritt and Adam Reynolds. Team Green Square – Jason Clark, Chris Sandow, Mal Webster, George Burgess, Rhys Wesser and James Roberts.
Each group has a team captain that is responsible for managing the group. The ‘Team Captain’ is responsible for maintaining the relationship with the School Principal and organising the boys weekly to make sure the rostered players attend their sessions. The team captains take ownership of their group, consulting with the players, school principals and the Souths Cares Program Co-ordinator ensuring weekly contact with the kids is maintained.
The Teacher’s Aide program kicked off for 2011 on Friday 13 May, with Dave Tyrrell and Nathan Peats engaging in literacy and numeracy activities with La Perouse Primary School. Dave Tyrrell is the La Perouse ‘Team Captain’ and has taken this role very seriously, organising his boys and getting them ‘buzzed’ up about the program. As a long standing participator in Souths Cares Community Programs, Dave Tyrrell knows firsthand, the personal development and satisfaction that comes from engaging with kids in our local community and has no hesitation in encouraging the players to become engaged.
An achievement program has been established to recognise and reward positive behaviour and successful learning outcomes for the students. Further training is currently being developed to allow one-on-one mentoring and to provide players with greater skills.
The Teachers’ Aide program is assessed on an ongoing basis to ensure relevant outcomes are achieved. Reviews conducted by Regional Directors of the Department of Education and Training have shown strong and positive feedback from school principals, staff, community elders and pupils.
Souths Cares will roll out the Teacher’s Aide Program for the remainder of the 2011 playing season.
The players are happy to build and maintain relationships with their allocated schools and have already provided positive feedback, acknowledging their power of engagement and the positive change that can come from this.
Healthy and Active Lifestyle Program
With assistance from the Indigenous Allstars and ‘Learn Earn Legend’, Souths Cares has gone into partnership with Life Education to roll out a holistic program for years 5 & 6 students in the South Sydney catchment area. This program combines the NRL initiative, ’Eat Well Play Well Stay Well’ and two Life Education programs, ‘All Systems Go’ and ‘Think twice’, to offer the kids a fun and educational excursion outside of the school environment, where South Sydney players will plug in and share their own healthy lifestyle choices with the kids.
Souths Cares General Manager, John Hutchinson, noticed a growing need amongst the South Sydney corridor of schools after consultation with principals, that most schools had discontinued their link with Life Education because of cost and that most parents were not able to afford extracurricular activities on top of already growing sport and in school commitments. John, saw this as a great opportunity to engage with our community at the same time as providing them with a fun an educational program that would be the basis of beginning a long-term relationship between these schools and Souths Cares.
This program has been offered to over 30 primary schools in the South Sydney Region and the schools that choose to engage will participate in 2 workshops at their convenience over the remainder of the year.
The first class took place with La Perouse Primary School, April 1 2011 and has since been presented to, Our Lady Mount Carmel, Redfern, St Marouns, Dulwich Hill, Maroubra Bay Public School and will continue to roll out twice a week, weekly from the Souths Cares ‘Classroom’ at South Sydney Corporate Park, kindly donated from The Hannan Group, a senior sponsor of the South Sydney Football Club as well as Souths Cares. There are already 27 workshops booked in and a few more schools to engage with.