Development etc

[Jeppo]

Pukana
<BR>I'm director of development for a S10 club here in Italy, and can confirm all of your comments about schools activity (or lack of...).
<BR>We fight a constant battle to gain a foothold in schools, but once we are in, they see the benefit of what we do. Our biggest job is to harness the help of the teachers themselves, as they look upon us as supply teachers rather than use us as an opportunity to add something to their CV. Our ruling therefore is that we not only offer school sessions, but also that the teacher must be present and actively help during the work. I have no hesitation in pulling one of our schools staff (I have 3 full time) out of a school if the teacher leaves the gym or field with the usual lame excuse (going to the office for 2 minutes; just need to do a bit of homework marking,) etc. I'm sure you know the routine.
<BR>We also only use Tag rugby in schools to begin with, as the biggest enemy is the violent image that rugby has had for years.
<BR>What we do 'major' on in fact is teacher development as a stand alone experience, and regularly run 'in house' teacher development days. We give them coffee, indoor and outdoor session, lunch, seminar ref. the development of the game, some personalized kit (Rugby Viadana Schools Project Staff Polo shirt) and some balls, Tags and resource material to become independant in their school work. We also give them a certificate of attendance, and follow up with a visit to their school some weeks later to monitor how things are going. Now however in our town and the surrounding 30 kms radius it's difficult for a boy or girl to arrive in school year 7 or 8 without having had some rugby experience or other. It would be interesting to swop some experiences with you. I'm at <a href="mailto:jeppo678@virgilio.it" target="_new">jeppo678@virgilio.it</a>

[jpw]

Thanks for the information Jeppo!