AFL Victoria and Northern Bay College launch school footy programs

AFL Victoria is excited to announce a new partnership with Northern Bay College and the Geelong Football Club that will see football programs delivered to schools around the AFL Barwon region.

The partnership will work to deliver a Sport, Empowerment, Education, Development (SEED) Program — an initiative of Northern Bay College to provide students with enhanced skills and opportunities to have happy, active personal lives while at the same time achieving excellent academic outcomes in their school life.

Commencing earlier this school term, AFL Victoria is delivering AFL Programs across the four school campuses at Northern Bay College and later this term will conduct an inter school football carnival involving older Primary School students.

For many students in the area, the game of AFL is foreign, and the programs have seen students introduced to the game of AFL for the very first time.

The ongoing strategic focus of the program is to provide each student at Northern Bay College an opportunity to learn more about Australian Rules Football, and then work closely with the student's families to educate them on the many opportunities which exist outside of school for them to be a part of a structured AFL program or competition.

Programs such as after-school Auskick and the transition of students into the local Northern Stars Football team will continue to be a strong focus, and the goal is to see many of these young players becoming important players and community members of the local North Shore and Corio Football Clubs.

Throughout this work, AFL Victoria and AFL Barwon have been well supported by the Geelong Football Club and they will continue to be engaged in the program into the future.

Head of AFL Victoria, Ben Kavenagh, said "Many of the students have never played Australian Rules Football, so it is exciting to be able to offer these programs and see the engagement of new participants in our great game."

"We are excited to be working with Northern Bay College on this project, and we are grateful to the Geelong Football Club for the support they are providing towards the program."