Schools program

Darra is a very multicultural suburb with the residents hailing from many different backgrounds so it isn’t surprising that the Bowls Club is very diverse and inclusive. We welcome any person who walks through the doors. We are always looking for new ways to be involved with the community and one of these is through our schools program.

Our schools program is aimed at students from about grade 5 (10yrs old) through to grade 9 (14 years of age) although it is certainly not limited to that age group. We selected that age group as an ideal cohort to introduce to the game of bowls given that children of that age have already developed a range of motor skills and are also keen to participate and learn.

We have recently established a partnership with Mancel College. The college is a specialist prep to year 12 school for students with language disorders and is operated by Language Disorders Australia. As a result of their difficulties quite a number of students from this school haven’t had a great opportunity to partake in many sports. But at Darra we have been successful in making the sporting dreams for one young boy come to fruition and Mancel is keen to work with us to achieve a similar outcome for their students. We are very excited to work with the college and we hope that the outcomes we can achieve with these kids can be replicated in other schools by both ourselves and other clubs who are similarly committed to making inclusion and diversity work rather than be just words.

Below is an wonderful story published in Queensland Bowler Magazine which gives an insight into our journey with Taylor and then Mancel College.

How our schools program works.

At Darra we are extremely fortunate to have a number of people strongly committed to diversity and inclusiveness. We were fortunate when a young boy with additional needs, Taylor, walked through our door and ask to learn to play bowls. He suffers from autism and has largely struggled to find his place in the world but through bowls he has found his passion. It was through Taylor and his incredibly supportive family that Darra was given the opportunity to work with schools to try to achieve similar outcomes. The members of Darra are right behind the program with a number of very experienced members signing up to be coaches and mentors for these kids. But these programs don’t operate without the significant support of a number of people and organisations including Bowls Queensland and Bowls Australia.

You can read a testimony from Taylor on our Juniors page.