Children want sporting chance

y HARRIET PALMER harriet.palmer@tnl.co.nz - Taranaki Daily News | Tuesday, 16 December 2008

CAMERON BURNELL

There was no basketball for Hawera Intermediate students, from left, Liam Doherty, Oliver Porter, Alexander Gilbert, and Arnez Close, all 13, yesterday. The hall was being used and the school doesn't have vital facilities such as a gym or a pool, a situation deputy principal Craig Simpson, centre, says is not good enough.

A Taranaki school says pressure to spend money on expensive technology means children are missing out on the basics.

Hawera Intermediate has no gym and no pool, a situation that's not going to change despite repeated calls by government to get children exercising.

Deputy principal Craig Simpson said pressure to keep investing in technology was taking big chunks from small budgets and other areas were seriously missing out.

"There is such a high ICT (information and communication technology) demand on schools now. A lot of funding and vision is going to that," he said.

"It would be lovely if the government could recognise that. We're still selling cakes to buy computers."

Mr Simpson said the cost and distance to the community pool meant swimming was out of the question.

Recent figures show only 50% of Year 6 students can swim 25m and drownings are expected to rise almost 50% by 2030. Despite being on the coast, Mr Simpson said he had seen a massive deterioration in the Hawera students' swimming ability.

"We have swimming sports here in February, I imagine most schools do. I'm amazed each year how few students can swim a distance, let alone strongly."

Mr Simpson said the situation was comparable with South Auckland schools where he had also taught.

"Going to the local pool is just out of reach. And we're not putting any worth on it. Less and less city kids are swimming and I see the same stuff happening in rural kids.

"Gone are the days where we could take kids down to the river for a dip. There's always safety procedures."

The school used its hall as a gym, but would love a purpose-built facility where they could store gear and exercise throughout winter.

Mr Simpson said not having one meant they were missing out on developing sports talent or offering a consistent physical health programme.

"If we had a gym children could say, `let's go down to the gym' instead of `what are we going to do this lunchtime?'

"It's just a huge ask. When I think about a gym, I don't want to say it's impossible. It just seems like a big endeavour and we're raising money for technology."