North's schools to share in $250,000

Almost $250,000  has been set aside by SPARC to get Northland children playing more sport at the grassroots level.
Sport Northland is now collecting applications for funding from schools and regional sports organisations for the Kiwisport Regional Partnership Fund which it administers. The organisation's chief executive Brent Eastwood said the money would be allocated in three main areas.
The first is a travel fund to get the area's more far flung teams to regular competition - or to fund new competitions in the region. The second is to run programmes in schools to raise the basic skill levels of children and the third is to address a change in the way sports co-ordinators are being funded in the region's schools.
Taipa Area School's sports co-ordinator Mandy Hudson said funding changes made at the end of last year meant small schools lost funding to their bigger counterparts after a population based model was introduced.
"It didn't change the hours for me here [Taipa has a medium-sized roll], but I do know of other schools who have lost their sports co-ordinators entirely, it seems to have affected the really small schools in particular," she said.
To redress the loss, the Northland Kiwisport plan will provide supplementary funding to the schools that have suffered in the funding cuts.
"We went back to SPARC and said there is now going to be less chance of school kids being active in these smaller schools and they came back and said, well in that case, your first priority [for the Kiwisport funding] is to make sure that secondary school sports co-ordinators are still viable within those schools," Eastwood said.
The second area of Kiwisport funding is aimed at improving basic sports skills among children and in Northland that could mean funding regional sport organisations (RSOs) to extend their competitions and skills programmes around the region.
He said better organised, bigger sports like rugby cricket and soccer, are the only organisations equipped to go into the schools and halt what Sport Northland sees as a fundamental decline of sporting skills among children.
"Not only can they teach the kids things like throwing, kicking, catching but they can also teach their teachers how to organise these skills and activities for our primary school kids as well," Eastwood said.
"Our kids just need a better level of fundamental movement skills - the skills that are going to ensure they can to play a wide variety of sports ... so what we're saying to RSOs and clubs and other providers is that we need a better level of skill development for our primary school kids, how do you think we can do that?"
The travel fund  is likely to receive the most  applications in geographically challenged Northland.

 The Far North District Council and the Kaipara District Council already run a SPARC Rural Travel Fund and it is likely Sport Northland may make more money available to those funds initially while investigating how to best proceed with its own programme.
The only problem that Eastwood sees with that is that the Whangarei District Council area is not covered by existing funds, yet there may be groups within that area that struggle to get their teams to competitions.
Hudson said there may be another problem. She said the conditions of the FNDC travel fund make it difficult for  school sports teams  to access it.
"We have never really applied to use that money because it is for funding regular weekly competition - we've looked into it but we were told it was only for weekend sports," she said.
The majority of Taipa Area school competitions at weekends are held in the local area.
"We do have one team that travels big distances every week - the futsal team - but they play on a Wednesday, so I don't think they qualify either, it seems kind of unfair that those kids have to pay," she said.
Extra - and more flexible - funding could help expand the number of sports teams at the school, she said.
"There are competitions that we could enter into - hockey in Kaikohe for example - but because it's so far away parents just can't afford it. To get some travel assistance would be great," she said.
 Hudson said Taipa Area schools  would consider making new funding applications for the SPARC fund.
 Applications close for the first round of funding on May 28. Applications forms are available at www.sportnorthland.co.nz