PIOPIO Primary children practicing for Friday’s athletics day. From left: Amy Hiriaki, Ruby Bevege, Maia Wiringi, Jack Hill, Heath Wilson, Thomas Dudin, Mela Bates. PHOTO SUE COYLE
TWO local schools will join forces on tomorrow to run their annual athletics day together for the first time. Since Aria and Piopio are close together, children would see and compete with friends, Piopio Primary principal Sue Coyle said. “I think it’s really nice that we can work together. The kids all spend time together out of school; I think it’s actually a real win-win for both schools,” she said. Aria principal Pam Voyce also saw benefits. A bigger event allowed students at the smaller Aria school to race against more kids in their age groups, she said. This would help them prepare for district events. “Just to give our kids a bit of competion really. [When] we compete with the Te Kūiti schools, it’s a bit of a shock for some of our guys. [It] gives them some exposure to what the real world’s like.” In previous years, Aria travelled to share athletics events with schools like Matiere and Ohura. Sue is looking forward to watching whanau come and cheer on their children. “I just like seeing all the parents here. Because with Covid we couldn’t do that, and it was such a foreign environment not to have our families on site. To have whanau on site is really important to us; to have our families come and support their tamariki is just amazing. We’re just loving that,” Sue said. Each school would record its own placegetters. “The recording for Piopio will just be against their own kids. We have an adult at each station, so that each adult from our school will record what our kids do,” Pam said. Next week, the children will reunite at the Te Kūiti Interschool Athletic Sports event at Piopio College, organised by Te Kūiti Primary.
