The Eagles Rock My School ('ERMS') year was officially bought to an end today with the draw for a signed West Coast Eagles guernsey - but before we announce the winners thought we would tell you a bit about this year’s program.

In 2009, the ERMS crew conducted 332 community visits around Western Australia. Areas included York, Bunbury, Geraldton, Cunderdin, Meckering, Tammin, Nungarin, Trayning, Beacon, Koorda, Dowerin, Goomaling, Bakers Hill, and schools throughout the Peel region.

The ERMS team would like to acknowledge the efforts of the 10 players who conduct reading and football clinics for ERMS in 2009: Ashley Arrowsmith, Brad Ebert, Tim Houlihan, Eric MacKenzie, Jamie McNamara, Will Scofield, Adam Selwood, Mathew Spangher and Will Sullivan.

We would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of the dedicated teachers in WA schools, especially those who played a role in having us attend their campus. Particularly significant in this group are AFL School Ambassadors. These teachers do a magnificent job in promoting our indigenous game within the education system in WA and we are proud to support them in their efforts.

Since the inception of this program in 2004, the ERMS presentation has evolved each year. Research in educational trends is something ERMS takes great pride in and receiving feedback from teachers regarding our program and educational trends assists us in our endeavours to improve the program every year. Since 2007, we have introduced an option to have a reading clinic instead of a football clinic which has reinforced the message that professional athletes read not only for their occupation or studies, but for their enjoyment as well.

This year, through feedback from our wonderful AFL School Ambassadors, we decided to discuss the importance of having and demonstrating values based on ‘values education’. We were informed that values were an important topic in schools and were a focus in the primary education sector.  As a result, the ERMS program is now shaped on values education where we encourage students to engage in values based behaviour which in turn helps them with their confidence and ability to make decisions based on these values. We teach students these values in an easy to remember five-point concept: These values are called the five R’s:

Respect yourself: look after yourself through diet and exercise, be proud of who you are and your culture
Respect others: treat others how you want to be treated, let others believe in what they want to believe in
Respect the environment: pick up rubbish even if it is not yours, benefits of recycling, saving water etc
Reach you potential: do your best by always going to school; attend all of your commitments
Reach out to your community: be a good person for your community; abide by all rules and laws

We teach these values through role-playing with Rick the Rock (our mascot) taking the lead role in the performance.

For every school we visit we leave behind a survey for the school contact to fill in, helping us to improve and evolve the program. As a small incentive for doing this we have a competition for all teachers who participate in the survey which sees two lucky teachers win a 2009 signed jumper! This semester we are happy to announce the two winners:

Elisa Philips from Alinjarra Primary School and,
Jan Whisson from Meckering Primary School

Both winners have been contacted and the jumpers will be sent out next week.
Finally, we would like to thank the key partner of our Eagles in the Community program, BHP Billiton Iron Ore, for their ongoing support in helping us reach out into our community and continue to deliver such exciting programs.

Have a great Christmas!

Kind regards,