SPORT 

SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY Term 1 Week 11 Thursday 7th April - Walcha Golf Course

Our school cross country will be this upcomingThursday 7th April at the Walcha Golf Course. Students in Infants K-2 will run 1km, Year 3-6 students aged 8-10yrs (any year 2 student who turns 8 this year is also included in this group) will run 2km and students aged 11-13 years will run 3km. It is the age your child turns this year. 

A permission note was sent home earlier this week with all the details. Please return the note & $2.50 for the bus by this upcoming Monday 4th April 2022 

DIOCESAN WINTER TRIALS

The Diocesan Winter Trials for Girls Hockey was held in Tamworth last Friday. A big congratulations goes out to Annie who gained selection to represent the diocese at the Polding Winter Trials at Bathurst on Friday 29th April.

Unfortunately due to wet weather, the Boys and Girls Football Trials was called off. Frankie, Sarah and Nate will get the chance to demonstrate their skills on Friday 8th April. Good luck, I know you will do us proud!

SCHOOL OZTAG COMPETITION

Our lunch time Oztag Competition for students in Years 2-6 has been rescheduled to tomorrow due to the wet weather that we had on Tuesday. This upcoming match will see both undefeated teams from Round 1, the Gorillas taking on the Lions. In the attachment below is a list of the players in their teams as well as the draw. Thanks to Frankie for doing a lot of work behind the scenes organising this competition.

Sporting Pathways

I have been recently asked by some members of our school community in regards to the sporting pathways that is offered to our students in regards to their chosen sport. I have included a diagram below that summarises the pathway a student can make from the school level, right up to Nationals.

Now to put the information listed above in our context as well as letting you all know when students can start the process of attempting to qualify to go to the highest level of competition in their chosen sports, I will describe how it works with both Cross Country and Winter Trials Sports (netball, hockey, football and rugby league).

Cross Country

A child can represent our school at the Diocesan Selection Cross Country Trials if they are 8 years or above. At the trials, your child will race against competitors from other schools in the diocese in their selected age group on what they are turning this year. The only exception is for 8 years old as they will be competing with the Under 9's children. For your child to gain entry for the diocesan team to compete at the Polding Trials, they need to run in the top 6 places. This is a challenge as normally there are over 100 students in each race. If your child makes it to this level, the process is competed again at the Polding Trials. Here your child will be competing against the top 6 qualifiers from other dioceses in the northern half of NSW. These dioceses are: Bathurst, Broken Bay (Northern Sydney), Lismore, Forbes-Wilcannia, Maitland-Newcastle as well as Armidale. If your child places in the top six, they will then represent Polding at the NSWPSSA Cross Country Championship, where they will be competing against students from all the regions public, independant as well as MacKillop (Southern Catholic Dioceses) throughout NSW. Then if they place in the top six, they will be representing NSW at the National Cross Country Championships.

Winter Trials

The example I am going to use here is Boys Football as I have been involved with this process for nearly 20 years. Only students in Year 6 and exceptional Year 5 players that have been identified by their schools will go to the Diocesan Winter Trials. They will be placed in a team where they will take part in games/skills throughout the day. In football, I will help select a team of 10 players (9 on a field and 1 reserve) to represent the Armidale Diocese at the Polding Winter Trials. At the moment there are 48 boys trying to gain selection for this team on Friday 8th April. At the Polding Trials, the boys will play all of the other five diocese in a carnival format. By watching all of the games, the selectors will chose a possible team and a probable team and these two teams will play at the end of the carnival where they will use these players to select a Polding Boys Football side. Like as I had mentioned previously, the Polding Team will then compete at the NSWPSSA Boys Football Championships and from there the students will then represent NSW.