GENERAL - Talented athletes train hard and keep their eyes on their books

A LIST of suggestions on a white board doesn't seem out of the ordinary for a new school until you get halfway down - when the list rolls on from water cooler to Sky Sports and then a racket restringing machine, you begin to get the feeling this is no normal school.
Whangarei's newest educational institute SET, the School of Emerging Talent, opened its door for business last week with 18 students enrolled in the first intake.
The students are all promising Northland athletes, trying to get ahead in their sports while continuing their high school education in a less conventional way.
They age from 12-year-old golfer Racheal Walters to 17-year-old swimmer Simon Parker, but despite the age difference there is a feeling of shared values at the school.
Parker's personal aim is to improve on his swimming performance without harming his education.
"I decided to start at SET because it's pretty hard to train at swimming when you have to turn up to normal school at 8.45am and leave at 3.25pm. Here you can turn up at 10am if you have a particularly hard training, or even train all morning if you like," Parker said.
But he said sport isn't the only focus.
"No, not at all, we're here five hours a day and during that time we do our schoolwork pretty much uninterrupted ... we're a bunch of focused students, who are surrounded by other focused students, so we can all get our work done together," he said.
The 2008 intake are from varying backgrounds and from different sports, with 11 main sports represented in the class of 12 boys and six girls - along with several other minor sports.
Unlike the Tu Toa Academy in Palmerston North - the only other similar sports academy in the country - the students are still enrolled in their high schools.
"Really it's the best of both worlds for the students because they get to stay in touch with their friends at their schools and also play in school sports teams and go on school trips," the school's dean Sharyn Thomas said.
The students take three or four school subjects through correspondence under Thomas' guidance but continue two subjects at their high school.
Thomas and the area's major high schools have put in a lot of work over the summer to be able to deliver for the SET students.
"There have been things we've had to work through with each of the schools, because each of the schools had their own requirements, with timetabling and so on."
The school is located at the town's sporting centre at Kensington Park and has set itself up at the Marist Clubrooms where they have access to the Kensington fitness centre where the students undergo specially designed fitness programmes overseen by personal trainers.
Dean said the complexities of starting a totally new school had been made easier by the attitude of the students themselves.
"The kids are all so motivated and they've all come on track quickly because they want to make this whole concept work for them and they all want to succeed," she said.
Caption details: Some of the students at SET sports academy now based at the Marist Clubrooms at Kensington Park. Crouching: Conrad Goodhew, Luke Tuimavave, Lochlan Kitchen. Standing: Josh Thomas, Simon Parker, Ashley Kitchen (upside down), Bram Egli, Jordan Mase, Lara Kennett.