QR Reds/Smith Family Vienna Woods State School project
The QR Reds have been visiting Vienna Woods State School in south-eastern Brisbane since 2008, as part of a Smith Family project that focuses on disadvantaged areas.
The players visit the school on non-training days to read to students and talk about their own experiences with goal setting and handling challenges.
They visited en masse on Wednesday, October 21, to interact with children from prep classes up to Year Seven.
The players working with the older children took part in a challenge to build a track made out of scrap materials that a golf ball could roll along from one end of a table to the other.
Then it was out to the sports field to run a water refill relay - using leaky containers - to see who could be the first to fill their team's bucket. And finally they finished with an old fashioned game of touch footy.
“The goal of these sessions is to help students identify their strengths and discover their potential in a fun and relaxed environment, whilst also getting a chance to meet some of their sporting idols,” said The Smith Family’s General Manager, Damian Foley.
The school principal, Robert Callum, said the involvement of the Reds helps his students learn more about goal setting and personal resilience and also helps improve literacy through reading programs.
On one of the Reds’ first visits the tiny Prep class presented some of the tallest forwards with a homework assignment to complete - an illustrated book entitled “Our Great Big Curious Reds Question Book”, containing frequently asked prep-age questions like: “Do you get hurt?” and “Do you get sweaty?”
The Rugby Union Players Association works with The Smith Family in each state.
For more information on The Smith Family’s education and learning programs visit www.thesmithfamily.com.au
