Taieri College pupils are visiting primary schools on the Taieri Plain.
These coaching visits involve senior pupils going back to their primary schools to pass on what they have learned at Taieri College. Each of the schools visited will be part of the annual year 6 winter sports tournament that is hosted at Taieri College.
Taieri College has two teams taking part in the new curling competition. The pupils took part in three weeks of skill-based sessions before the competition started.
The Dunedin Clay Target Club held the intercollegiate shoot recently at its Waldronville grounds. Three pupils from Taieri College attended, with Gemma Bonney finishing second in single rise, first in points score and third in single barrel.
Otago Girls' High School
Hannah Close was first in the vault and third in the beam, and Alice Burrow first in the ball, at the Otago gymnastics qualifying competition. At the Invercargill club competition, Hannah was first in the bar, beam and floor routines and second in the vault, giving her an overall placing of first. Hannah and Charlotte Woodhouse will be competing in the national gymsport championships in Auckland in August.
The school curling competition has started and Otago Girls' has four teams entered. There are a total of 16 teams in the competition. The First XV rugby team competed in the final last week against St Hilda's. The team is now excited to be participating in a sevens competition which is being run after the six-week rugby competition.
Four of our top swimmers - Tegan Duncan, Alice Moran, Erin Ford and Saskia Turner - will be competing in the South Island secondary schools championships in Blenheim on July 12-13.
From July 5 to 7, Otago Girls' had seven athletes competing in the Down Under track and field championships in Brisbane. The 4x100m relay team of Sydney Evans-Tobata, Brigid O'Neill, Alex Lesa and Emma Ward which won the South Island under-14 title in 2011 and won bronze in the national championships last year came a creditable fourth at the Down Under event, beating all the Australian teams and finishing behind three teams from the United States.
In the first individual events completed, Emma won silver in the high jump and was sixth in the 100m, Alex was fourth in the triple jump with a personal best of 10.26m, and Alana Close was fifth in the 400m. All athletes had performed to high standards along with their coach, Otago Girls' mathematics teacher Jarrod Adams, who won the shot put.
Kaikorai Valley College
The gymnasium complex was recently the venue for the southern area open judo championships. Six pupils who are members of the Kaikorai Valley College judo club competed. Kruz Cleminson (year 9) won two silver medals in the senior boys grade. Noah Graham-Walker (year 11) won a bronze medal in the junior men's division.
Thomas Johnson (year 12) has been called into the New Zealand under-17 boys touch team to travel to Queensland in September to compete in the Australian national youth championships.
Kyle Rutherford (year 10) has been selected to compete in the world BMX championships in Auckland in the second week of the school holidays. Kyle is ranked ninth in the New Zealand boys 15yr class.
As part of the Sport in Education project, year 12 pupils have continued with their Growing Coaches Programme in the contributing primary schools, and they have developed their skill levels and ability to coach the young pupils.
Some of the senior netball team also completed their umpiring badges and gained practical experience refereeing a tournament the school ran for the contributing schools.
Year 9 pupils have also been busy competing in a mini Winter Olympics to celebrate World Olympics Day. Events included a biathlon, maths event, curling, English event and a slalom race. Year 7 and year 9 pupils also attended an Olympic Ambassador presentation from Matt Randall. Matt competed as a cyclist in the team pursuit at the 2004 Athens Olympics. He stressed the importance of setting goals, coping with setbacks, having a good support team and finishing strongly.
Year 9 pupils have also been using the Tour de France as their learning theme in English, maths and physical education this term. In maths, pupils have been calculating bike wheel circumference, using gear ratios and getting to grips with gradients and slope.
In English, they have been reading about some of the issues from the Tour de France and relating them to a novel they are studying, and in physical education, pupils have been riding the spin bikes while watching the tour cyclists and trying to maintain the same pedalling cadence.
Finally, to experience cycling for real, the pupils took part in a team race based at Forsyth Barr Stadium and along the harbour cycleway.
St Hilda's success
St Hilda's Collegiate School teams enjoyed two successful days at the Otago secondary schools netball tournament on June 9-10.
The senior A, intermediate A and junior A teams all went through the round robin section unbeaten, and won quarterfinals and semifinals.
The senior A team came up short in a hard-fought final against South Otago High School, but the intermediate A and junior A teams both played some lovely netball and won their finals (over Columba and Taieri, respectively).
The senior B team was a late entry, coming in for a team that had withdrawn at the last minute. It played some great netball against strong opponents in the senior A section.
The First XV rugby team beat Otago Girls' 17-0 in the secondary schoolgirls final.
After a season disrupted by the weather, both teams played with lots of enthusiasm and are looking forward to attending the annual festival of rugby tournament in Oamaru in the holidays. In term three, teams will compete in a sevens competition.
John McGlashan
John McGlashan College had two athletes competing at the national cross-country championships in Christchurch. Oli Chignell finished 18 out of 144 athletes with a time of 13min 8sec. Joe Beamish also competed but failed to finish the race through illness.
John McGlashan had a successful exchange with St Andrew's College.
The 26-22 win in rugby was McGlashan's first in the fixture since 2008 and first time at home since 1996.
The basketball team also won both games, 60-55 and 39-33, and there were wins in trap shooting (397-366), debating, badminton (4-2) and ice hockey (3-1). St Andrew's scored a late goal to win the football 2-1, and won the hockey (1-0) and theatre sports.
Woody Kirkwood and Jack Swain have been selected in the Otago under-17 basketball team and Jack Ascroft has been selected in the Otago under-19 team.
The under-14 A rugby team is unbeaten this season and looking forward to the match-up with Otago Boys' soon.
Dunstan High School
Georgia Vessey has been named in the New Zealand under-19 cycling team. Georgia is part of the six-person team to contest the Australian road championships in Noosa this month.
King's events
King's High School won the senior title at the Otago cross-country championships for a third straight year.
Jonah Smith (third), David White (ninth), Will Meiklejohn (10th) and Zinzan Smith (11th) formed a formidable team. Joe Matthews surprised himself by winning his first Otago title in the under-16 race, and Andrew Smith also impressed with his third placing.
The cross-country team recently returned from competing in the New Zealand championships, where David White won the gold medal in the AWD 6km race and Josh Rosie earned a well-deserved silver medal in the AWD 2km race.
The year 9 team finished 11th in the six-person race which placed it second in the South Island.
The senior team finished 17th, placing it seventh in the South Island.
Avinash Shastri has been selected for the Otago under-17 badminton team for the South Island championships, and Wilson Driver, Sidney Fidow and Joseph Cairns-Thomson have been selected for the under-17 Highlanders rugby training camp.
The King's smallbore shooting team is the best in Otago and is nationally ranked. King's has three teams entered in the national ''triple S'' competition and all have been placed in the top 10.
The No 1 team, comprising Sam Young, John Brosnahan, Will Cottle and Campbell Wright, was fifth in New Zealand after the first round.
All four regularly shoot scores in the 99s.
The King's First XI has produced some outstanding hockey results. Although the team is young - it includes eight juniors - it has beaten both John McGlashan and Otago Boys'.
Logan Park
Logan Park High School's learning and support class has been actively involved in the weekly sports sessions with the Halberg Trust this year. This has given pupils with physical disabilities, behaviour and learning issues an opportunity to mix with other similar pupils from schools around the city.
The organised activities carefully designed by qualified instructors have met the needs of all pupils, resulting in positive experiences and culminating in Special Olympic events.
The Logan Park High School pupils have experienced great success.
The Special Olympics athletics ribbon day resulted in pupils receiving many first places and ribbons across all events. One of these pupils, Kieran Allnatt, represented Logan Park High School at the Otago secondary schools athletic championships.
Recently, Logan Park pupils participated in the Special Olympics football event, showing their skill and enthusiasm for the game and earning ribbons for their efforts.
Table tennis has been a huge success at Logan Park. The sports council is running a competition over three lunchtimes each week, with more than 70 pupils involved.
• These articles are compiled by the Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association (OSSSA) which is proudly sponsored by Perpetual Trust.
