IT'S AN EXCITING time around the Carlton Football Club. Success, uncharted territory and new legacies are being forged every time the team hits the field.
More importantly, it’s that time of the year when the Nave Blues add a splash of orange and all for a great cause, with the Round 4 clash with Richmond signalling the annual AFLW Carlton Respects game.
New inclusion to the backline, Harriet Cordner, has shown her maturity and leadership on the field, with the younger players looking to her for advice in football, but that’s not the only place where Cordner is looked up to.
Away from IKON Park, Cordner is a primary school teacher and is shaping the future of our community, now with the help of the Carlton Respects program.
The newest addition to the Carlton Respects program is the 'Road To Respect' online learning platform, aimed towards senior primary school students and showing them how to build respectful relationships at school and at home, which is something that Cordner has chosen to implement in her teaching in term four.
“With Carlton Respects, it's a really big round for the Club and we’ve been promoting our Road To Respect program at the moment,” Cordner said.
“I’m a teacher myself I’m going to put it into my teaching for term four because I just think it’s so important."
Cordner spoke to media and Jess Good on ‘Yeah Good Chat’ during the week to emphasise what the importance of a program like Road To Respect will have on the young generation when it comes to conversation-starting.
The education and values learnt from the online learning platform are the first step to prevention and not being a bystander was important when Cordner decided to implement the program.
“Kids ask questions all the time, it’s what’s so great about them," she said.
"If they come to the game and ask 'why are they wearing orange?', it sparks a conversation that should be had, then kids can implement [what they learn from Road To Respect] straight away in the playground and in the classroom.
“We talk about education being a really good preventer and if we start that at a really young age, you could be doing it with grade threes who are eight-years-old and it’ll become the norm for them."
Click here to find out more about the Road to Respect program.
