Omanaia is a school based west of Kaikohe with a roll of around 20 students who have been working together with support from whanau, staff and Energize to increase their physical activity time while at school.

Prior to the school becoming an Energize school, daily fitness was run on the odd day, however now staff and students have made a commitment to have daily fitness sessions.

Staff are being fantastic role models and are out with the students running daily for around 15 – 20 minutes encouraging each other to get as many laps in as possible. “They are also setting little challenges for themselves such as most personal laps, closest to the average laps of the school and other small goals” says Joel Quitta-Moses, Sport Northland’s Energizer.

“We are quite a small school but we are really focusing on our daily fitness ideas and activities that work across all year levels plus games that we can all play as one so nobody misses out. So modifying ideas really have to be thought about before putting them into action but it is all good fun” says Principal Jon Smith.

With cross country being the big event in the area in term three they want to get a head start. When the weather is not the greatest, they head under the shelter for a bit of skipping or small circuits in the spare room.

On top of fitness, Omanaia School have a focus on developing teamwork and learning to work as one while playing sport and working alongside Energize they have been playing and taking part in small team activities and coming up with strategies in various activities together with their team. “Things can get quite competitive at Omanaia and this focus is helping with teamwork when the goal is to win” says Moses.