Sea Eagles Reads Project
This project's parent organization is Manly Warringah Sea Eagles
It operates in Australia
It uses Rugby League
Entered the Best New Project
More about Sea Eagles Reads Project
The Sea Eagles Reads program uses professional First Grade National Rugby League players from the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles as mentors and tutors of reading in Primary Schools. Addressing International and National research which shows students, particularly boys, underperform in Literacy, are disengaged in reading and see reading as a feminine activity and a skill not needed as a sports star, the Manly Sea Eagles partnered with University Lecturer and Boys Education expert, Suzan Hirsch, to create a program and robust conceptual framework which directly addressed these Literacy concerns.
Initial pre-data revealed that the majority of students identified sports stars, particularly Rugby League players as their heroes. These students also claimed reading was not important if they wanted to be a Rugby League player. Therefore in order to make a realistic difference to these students ‘real’ sports stars needed to be used physically in the classroom on a weekly basis to make significant difference to these strong beliefs.
Recognising the importance of education, particularly Literacy Skills, Deanne Lees from the Sea Eagles committed players’ time to the project every week in order to research the difference these players could make in classrooms using their sporting status.