"Cut the ribbon, cut the ribbon!" the pupils chanted before rushing to the playground to be the first on the monkey-bars and other new equipment.
After three of the playgrounds at the school were demolished due to not meeting health and safety requirements, the pupils at Brockville Full Primary School were left with just a single playground, so the school decided to apply for Mitre 10’s Helping Hands Project.
Out of more than 550 applications — over half the primary schools in New Zealand — Brockville was one of the few chosen for a new playground.
The playground was the second installed in the South Island after South New Brighton School, in Christchurch, got their new space in June.
The new space was a welcome addition to the school, she said.
She told the children she was especially excited for the orange slide because it was her favourite colour.
"To have the new playground is unbelievable, it’s actually been really heartwarming ... we’re just very, very lucky — very lucky."
"It’s really quite emotional actually, it’s so lovely for our children to have something as wonderful as this."
Mitre 10 head of brand marketing Rob Bowring said his favourite subject at school had been "play".
He said the project had started about a year and a-half ago when the Mitre 10 team realised playgrounds were not necessarily funded by the Ministry of Education.
"Over 50% of primary schools told us they really needed a playground, and it was overwhelming in itself to have that many entries," he said.
Mr Bowring said he was most excited to see the joy from the children playing on the completed space, and he would have been "stoked" to play on something like the playground when he was a child.
"When I was at school we had a tyre and a few things to play on, we had nothing like this.
His favourite play equipment at Brockville’s new playground were the new spinning rings "then absolutely the slides, you’ve got to get the slides."
