A key philosophy of Kaitaia College is Mahi Tahi. Underlying this is the spirit of cooperation and working together. Suspecting that the competitive entries for the school’s athletics champs might be low, Sport Coordinator Juice Brown, decided to invite other kura in the community to join them. The result was not only an increase in the overall number of students participating however the positive building of relationships between the schools.

Te Kura Kaupapa o Pukemiro and Abundant Life School were both really pleased to be able to join the College. “It made a big difference to our athletes being able to properly compete”, says Abundant Life School Sport Coordinator Polly-Anne Hewson. “We helped by running the javelin event. That was our contribution.” Abundant Life School has since decided to send 14 athletes to the upcoming Northland Secondary School Championships on 15 March in Whangarei. In 2017 they sent two.

And would they do it like this again?  “It was a cool day to have the other schools participating. It gave our athletes some really good competition,” said Juice. The concept behind this event is simple and very effective. The future of the event is extremely positive.