School takes ‘back to basics’ focus to sport
What a whirlwind year this has been. It was during lockdown that the idea of our multisport track was born.
The track will be about 2km in length and used for walking, running, mountain biking and equestrian.
It will benefit everyone at Nga Tawa – the equestrian girls on their horses as well as the sports girls.
The project is well underway and we will be breaking ground on December 12.
Our focus this year was “back to basics”, so the girls have worked on their core and strength, which is a great building block for their chosen sport as well as prevention of injuries.
We did a speed, agility and quickness introductory course and introduced an entire-school run on a Monday afternoon.
The sports we have chosen to focus on are swimming, tennis, athletics, volleyball, hockey, netball, cross country, badminton and weightlifting.
Our coaches are paramount to the success of our teams so we have begun to introduce top coaches to boost our specific sports.
Netball Coach Eliza Graham started at Nga Tawa at the start of netball season and has taught our girls invaluable lessons.
Our junior A netball team won their grade this season and under coach Rose Cruden, our badminton juniors won the Manawatu Badminton Competition for 2020.
Coached by Kent Horner our cross country team did exceptionally well in the Whanganui Inter-Schools event with our senior three-man team Adelaide Roper, Harriet Whitfield and Emma Ferguson winning.
Emma is fresh to the athletics scene and is building in confidence and experience on the track.
She is extremely talented and hardworking and after only five weeks of competition she is now ranked 10th on the New Zealand Athletics ranking system.
Our head girl, Georgina Bryant, has had a busy year and represented Nga Tawa at New Zealand
Secondary Schools Triathlon Championships where she placed 11th. She placed 3rd at North Island Secondary Schools Duathlon Championships.
She was 1st at the Kapiti Womens Triathlon and 1st U19 at New Zealand Aquathlon Championships.
We are also extremely proud of our representative players Lili Calitz (weightlifting), Jade Larkan (cricket); Kathryn Fleming (rowing); Merenia Feaunati (netball); Elle Thomson (cricket); Jemma Lovewell (cricket) and Abby Ross (tennis).
Other than our students doing well in their respective events, we are proud to announce our new sports scholarship programme.
It is for new prospective students in Year 11, 12 or 13 who show excellence in their chosen sport.
In Term 4 our High Performance Academy was named.
The academy, is made up of 26 girls who show dedication, talent and passion in their chosen sport. We will be helping the girls manage their time correctly by using an internationally recognised coaching platform called Training Peaks.
The mental skills coach and
sports psychologist for the Hurricanes, Luke Rowe, will be doing a two-day workshop for the girls and coaches.
We are also discussing a nutrition workshop with Rozanne Kruger who heads the dietetics faculty at
Massey.
Equestrian
We won the Solway College
Dressage Interschool. Eva van den Brink was Junior and Overall Champion. Nga Tawa JA and JB Teams placed first and second in the Junior section.
Molly Pike has performed consistently this season and is leading the National Show Hunter High Points series on both her pony Oddfella Nga Rua and her horse Zig Zag.
Lilly Carpenter has just stepped up to show jumping at young rider level 1.25-1.40m and placed 5th in her first start at the Wanganui A&P
Show.
We have a large contingent of upand-coming riders who are starting to perform well in their disciplines at their respective levels so lots of exciting things to come in the future.