Junior School sports

SPORT

U J NIOR SCHOOL SPOR T S AS POPULAR AS EVER!

At Diocesan Junior School our after-school sports programme is as popular as ever. The girls choose from a wide range of options including non-competitive sports – athletics, playball, tennis and triathlon, and competitive team sports – cricket, flippa ball, futsal, gymnastics, hockey, netball and ski racing.

This year we have received over 300 student registrations for competitive sports and our programme comprises 47 teams, supported by over 60 coaches, 47 team managers and some volunteer umpires. We love seeing our girls out on the turf, court, slopes and in the pool, giving their best and supporting each other. Team sports have proved to be a hugely beneficial part of the co-curricular programme. It offers us the opportunity to grow great girls by helping them to progress their friendships, learn new physical skills and develop personal attributes such as good sportsmanship, commitment, resilience and good effort. On top of this, the fun factor is a major draw card!

Mini polo girls at training.

Year 6 players with coaches Val Vergara and William Stables.

JUNIOR HOCKEY PROGRAMME A focal point for 2020

This year we are excited to introduce a new format, facilitated by head hockey coach, Will Stables. Will has an impressive background in hockey both as a player and coach. He was previously co-captain of the Capital U-21 men’s team, winning the New Zealand U-21 Championships, and has coached in the MX Hockey Academy. This year he is working closely with our new Dio hockey Sports Manager, Jason Butcher, who is one of New Zealand’s leading high performance and development coaches.

Together with Jason, we are providing a junior hockey programme highly targeted towards developing the correct foundation technical skills. We have revised our structure and development content and have been working with our external and student coaches to provide a top-class junior programme. We are also working closely with Jason to align our junior and senior programmes so we can successfully transition our Year 6 girls into full turf hockey in the Senior School.

Up to 100 girls play hockey at the Junior School level and a record 220 senior girls takes our hockey population to around 320 players in total. This makes hockey one of the most popular codes at Dio. We love seeing our juniors out there learning and having fun, and we are very proud when we see them continue to develop and go on to represent our School.

FLIPPA BALL

Vibrant & progressive

Our flippa ball community is flourishing with a continuous improvement approach. We have introduced a new and improved development format and our head coach and Dio Old Girl, Hannah Ngare, does a fantastic job delivering this with our coaches. This year we have also brought in Charlotte Worth, an experienced water polo coach at Atlantis Club, Neptunes and Baradene College. She is facilitating our mini polo programme for the older junior girls. Our aim is to provide a fun and valuable programme at all levels from Years 3 to 6 and ultimately to provide a strong bridge for our Year 6 players transitioning across into Year 7 water polo.

In Term 1, our juniors took the opportunity to come along and support our senior Dio premier team at several games – they continue to dominate in the pool and are currently New Zealand national champions. Many of our senior players coach our juniors and the connections between young and old are very rewarding, with a strong culture and community that our junior girls love.

Years 3 to 6 futsal players.

Dio Dynamites, Dodgers, Dragons and Dazzlers

Sounds like the stuff of myth and legend and perhaps it is! Our futsal programme is as popular as ever. Having grown from just a handful of girls a couple of years ago, we now have four teams comprising girls from Years 1 to 6 competing in the Auckland Futsal League. Our girls love this code because it’s relaxed, fast and exciting, with lots of touches on the ball. Our teams compete throughout the year so there’s plenty of opportunity for development and progress.

Our Dio Intermediate (Years 7 and 8) futsal team continues to do well; last year they took out the gold medal at the AIMS Games in Tauranga. This certainly seems to have inspired our Dio junior Dynamites, Dodgers, Dragons and Dazzlers who continue to shine on the pitch.

NETBALL A NEW WAY OF WORKING

We are very excited that Courtney Tairi, ex-Silver Fern, has come on board as our junior head netball coach in 2020. Her role includes facilitating the development programme, providing content and mentoring coaches. She brings a wealth of knowledge and has a magical touch with our juniors. Courtney has facilitated our pre-season sessions and she has planned some fresh and exciting initiatives to lift the quality of our development programme. Our aim is to provide lots of fun; include all, develop our girls well and ultimately send them off to intermediate seven-a-side netball with strong foundation skills.

Netball is a very well subscribed code with up to 100 girls playing at the junior level in 12 teams. On top of this, our senior netball programme has now reached 40 teams, so we have a total number of over 450 girls playing netball at Dio, making it our largest code.

There’s a fair amount of excitement and enthusiasm on our courts! We love seeing the girls having fun and learning in such a positive community.

SKI RACING A huge jump in numbers

Over recent times our junior ski racing programme has seen a huge jump in numbers. Last year we took three teams to the NIPS Ski Racing Championships at Mt Ruapehu and the numbers have grown again this year, with around 25 skiers attending our race programme at Snow Planet. This code provides an excellent opportunity for our skiers to come together and compete, supporting each other in a very exciting environment. Our ski racing families are fabulous and there’s a lot of support for our young racers.