Little school has big success

READY SET: Whareama School runners Tessa Sandall (left), Year 5, Zara Le Grove and Joel Silvester, Year 6, Sam Silvester, Year 7, and Maya Oliver, Year 8, have won selection to compete at the Wellington Regional Cross-Country Championships at Waikanae Park on July 1. PHOTOS/SUPPLIED

Parents, teachers and pupils at Whareama are together paving the way to victory for their little country school.

Whareama School principal Darren Kerr said the school, which has a roll of 37 pupils, had cemented a tradition of achievement at interschool sporting competitions within and beyond the region.

Whareama this month had taken the Primary School of the Year Award at the Wairarapa Times-Age 2014 Sports Awards that recognised teams the school fielded in hockey, football, mod softball, T-ball and tennis, and the several regional sporting tournaments at which the school annually competed.

"That blew us away. We have 100 per cent participation in sports and a really good core bunch of kids who do really well," Mr Kerr said.

Five pupils from the school had won selection to compete at the Wellington Regional Cross-Country Championships at Waikanae Park on July 1 including Tessa Sandall, Year 5, Joel Silvester and Zara Le Grove, Year 6, Sam Silvester, Year 7, and Maya Oliver, Year 8.

Maya Oliver also took third place in the Year 8 category of the Interzone Speech finals held at Gladstone School on Wednesday night, and schoolmate Darleen Rogers also competed as a finalist in the Year 7 category of the contest.

Maya delivered a speech on "being a Generation Y kid", Mr Kerr said, and Darleen spoke on the New Zealand Maori rugby team.

Martinborough School had taken first place in the Year 8 category and Gladstone School took first place in the Year 7 grade of the finals.

"The achievement in our school comes down to community and the involvement of our parents, and their willingness to be a part of extracurricular activities," he said.

"When you have kids who want to compete and staff and parents who are helping them, who want them to win, it's a winning combination."