The Australian Rugby Union is looking to inspire the next generation of rugby players and fans through National Rugby Week.

The initiative will involve more than 200,000 kids from over 800 schools around Australia, with an added focus in 2016 on reaching children in non-traditional rugby areas.

“National Rugby Week is about initiating the conversation with schools that we’ve never spoken to before,” ARU Head of Participation Cameron Tradell told Rugby News.

“We are trying to broaden our footprint and reach other schools and make them aware of rugby and some of the exciting things that are happening.”

This year, National Rugby Week has an Olympic theme with all participating schools in the running to receive a visit from an Olympic Sevens player after the event.

“We are asking the kids to send a heroes message to our rugby players heading to Rio, plus we’ve got some classroom sessions targeting inclusion and the Olympics as well as some on-field sessions,” Tradell said.

As part of the ARU’s new Strategic Plan, Tradell says National Rugby Week is the first step towards increasing overall participation rates around the country.

“It’s critical that we at least initiate the conversation with those non-traditional schools and National Rugby Week is a great way to open the door to that. From there, we look at linking the schools to their local rugby clubs,” he said.

“After we’ve made contact with the school, we can also link in with the local development officers from the state unions and then try to push them onto the next rugby activity. That might be Game On, our primary schools program or a new high school program that will be rolled out next year.

“A great example is up in Gladstone. The local development officer up there is now looking to start a junior competition this year with players from non-traditional rugby schools and that’s a direct result of these programs.”

Although Tradell admitted that rival codes offer similar programs, he said he was pleased with the progress of National Rugby Week and the ARU’s schools programs.

“It’s certainly grown over the last few years. Two years ago we reached 700 schools, last year it was 740 and this year we’re over 800 schools so we are definitely broadening our reach,” he said.

“The feedback we’ve received from those schools has been remarkable and we’ll be looking to share that in the near future.”

Tradell said it was vital that rugby found a point of difference from the other codes.

“I think our local rugby clubs create a fantastic and welcoming environment for young players and I do believe that is unique and different to the other codes.

“It’s absolutely vital that we create a link between the schools involved in these programs and the local rugby clubs around Australia,” he said.

“We need to support the local clubs and the state unions to capitalise on this.”