The annual North Otago sports day for Oamaru's secondary schools has been called off and the future of the event is in jeopardy.
The traditional First XV match between Waitaki Boys' High School and St Kevin's College will go ahead as scheduled on July 7. But all the other fixtures have been cancelled due to health and safety concerns.
Waitaki Girls' deputy principal Margaret Williams said the three Oamaru schools had agreed the event in its present format was not sustainable.
The main concern was for the unsupervised movement of pupils between venues, and there were ''not enough activities for majority participation'', the school reported on its website.
''The three schools worked very hard [to find a solution] and it was a group decision by the three principals, as I understand it,'' Williams said.
''That is something we need to go back to the drawing board about,'' she responded when asked if the event had a future.
''There will be some disappointment among the students, yes.''
Getting the Waitaki Girls' pupils from one end of the town to the next was a challenge and the school did not have the staff to adequately supervise them.
Waitaki Boys rector Darryl Paterson said it had been an issue for ''the past couple of years'' and no satisfactory solution had been found.
''[The event] may have a future but we have not had a time to sit down and look at anything for next year yet,'' he said.
''We've dealt with this year's issues ... which have made it too difficult to manage the event.''
Providing equal opportunities for all the schools to participate was also an issue, he said.
