K R I S T I N S P O RT
Summer Sport Summary In what turned out to be a challenging time for all our Kristin summer sports, the Kristin School programme still produced plenty of highlights. Congratulations to our three Auckland Secondary Schools Champions for 2020: Senior Boys’ Water Polo, Senior Boys’ Tennis and the Senior Girls’ Tennis team. All three teams were unbeaten and thoroughly deserved their championship titles.
In Water Polo, our Senior Boys team were undefeated and claimed the Senior A Auckland Secondary Schools title for 2020. Along with the Senior Girls team, they had both qualified for the tier one NZ Secondary Schools Championships which were scheduled for Wellington in April during the second week of the holidays. Likewise, our Senior Girls and Senior Boys’ Tennis teams were undefeated also. The Senior Mixed Tennis team had qualified for the tier one NZ Secondary Schools Championships to be held in Christchurch during Summer Tournament Week starting 28 March and we were also sending a Senior Boys team to the division two championships, also in Christchurch, as well. Our Colts Cricket team were undefeated too, and clearly won the division of their competition. The boys have had a great season training with intent and developing their skills throughout the term. The 1st XI were unbeaten in the second round of their competition as well. The school-wide Swimming Sports and Senior School House Sports Day were completed in Term 1 and our students also represented Kristin at both these events as part of the North Harbour School Championships. We are delighted to report that two of our students won their events: Worren Li in the Senior Boys’ Triple Jump and Finn Burridge in the Intermediate Boys’ Javelin. 10 students qualified to compete at the Auckland Secondary Schools Championships. In Swimming, Belle Li and Rebecca Wilkins gained top-three placings in their events. Hats off to Ruby Horwood, Emma Hoseason and Zoe Ries for competing in the Auckland Schools Head of Harbour Rowing regatta and the North Island Secondary Schools Championships. They collected medals as a novice double scull crew representing Kristin. Their training was part of the North Shore Rowing programme which starts at Year 10.
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K R I S T I N S P O RT S E T S PAC E In Term 3 last year the Kristin Sports Office team had a meeting with Simon Walters from AUT. Simon is a lead researcher and educator in sport and PE. His latest research has been around drop-out rates in youth and sport, and he said: “A key focus was to have research-informed conversations with parents, coaches, volunteers and teachers, as well as with the organisations that put the structures in place, about what makes a quality sporting experience for a young person.” At the end of 2019, we surveyed our Year 7 - 13 students about their sporting experiences at Kristin. At the secondary school level (Years 9-13) we asked the students to rate their coach on the following attributes: a) Ability to create a positive culture and environment. b) Ability to run engaging well-planned training sessions. As you can see from the graphs at the top of the following page, the responses were overwhelmingly positive. The Sports Office team have worked hard across all sports to ensure there is a consistent delivery of training programmes that embraces Mr Walters’ research findings. The word ‘fun’ is used by many in this debate. When youth athletes are asked to describe what fun is, they overwhelmingly reply that it is about playing with their friends, in a competition that they have a chance in and with a coach who knows them and the game. It is not just about winning. We asked our Year 7 and 8 students the following: a) Did you have fun playing your main sport for Kristin? b) Did your coach make training and playing enjoyable for you? As you can see from the graphs at the bottom of the following page, there was again a positive response from our students.
