Year 6 hockey practice
Full steam ahead
I
FOR JUNIOR SPORT
t seems nothing can curb the enthusiasm of our junior sports girls. Despite participation restrictions imposed by COVID management regulations earlier in Term 1, our afterschool sports programme is now running full steam ahead in Terms 2 and 3. The girls have returned to their chosen sports codes and wasted no time, jumping back in with great enthusiasm.
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codes such as junior netball. Diocesan has one of Auckland’s largest school netball communities, with a total of 56 teams participating from the senior to the junior level. This includes around 110 girls from Years 1-6 competing in 16 junior netball teams at the Windmill Park and St John’s Netball Centres.
We are delighted to see so many of our girls out on the turf, in the pool and on the courts; laughing, positively interacting with others, learning, full of joy and excitement. Apart from the obvious health benefits for our girls, these are the gifts of our Junior School sports programme.
Running such a sizeable sports programme is possible with the help of a large base of external coaches, volunteer parent and student coaches, volunteer parent team managers and umpires. We are very grateful to our wonderful parents who step in to manage teams, coach and umpire when required. In fact, there are over 110 personnel involved in the delivery and facilitation of our winter sports programme.
We did expect high participation numbers with our Junior School roll now at maximum capacity. We are currently offering nine codes during the winter terms including netball, hockey, flippa ball, futsal, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, playball, jump jam and ski racing. Taekwondo is also offered as an after-school activity. There are around 40 competitive teams in action during these winter terms.
Of this number, 50 are senior student coaches. These student coaches form a special component of our programme as they’ve chosen to give their time in service and leadership to our juniors. They are keen sportswomen in their own right, full of enthusiasm and current knowledge. Our student coaches deliver around 2500 coaching hours per annum to our juniors. We simply could not offer our programme without them.
We have yet again broken records with our participation numbers in certain
We support and develop these student coaches as they, in turn, develop and
DIO TODAY
support our juniors. Not all primary schools are so lucky to have access to a community like this and it is part of what makes our programme so special. Many of these student coaches are doing their Duke of Edinburgh International Service Award and many were Dio Junior School girls themselves. They are great role models for our juniors. Wrapped around this is our community of parents, giving positive sideline support to both players and coaches, providing logistics, half-time oranges and post-game hugs. We are very grateful to have such a large and supportive parent community encouraging our sports girls. We are also grateful for our communities’ general understanding and patience as we navigate a very challenging time with winter illness as players and coaches alike fulfil the requirement to isolate for a period of time while they recuperate. This has had a significant impact on our winter programme, with player and coach availability affected at trainings and games. More than usual we’ve had to pull players in from other teams to cover games, and our coaches have also stepped in to cover other teams as needed. We do appreciate the support and understanding of our parents as we navigate this weekly challenge.
