A group of para athletes from Papanui High School have seen huge success at the New Zealand secondary schools cross country championships at QEII Park.
Josh Rae won the senior boys T38 2km race. The T20 classification is for athletes with an intellectual disability and T38 is for those with co-ordination problems such as cerebral palsy.
Papanui High sports coordinator Sarah Lamb said giving disabled athletes a platform to shine has been a focus for the school in recent years.
“We always enter our athletes into the para events,” she said.
“We go to all the Canterbury secondary school events that offer the para events. We’re always at those events, and sometimes we are the only school.
“The attitude of the staff is that just because they have a disability, whether it be intellectual or physical, it doesn’t mean they can’t run or they can’t play basketball, and that’s what I love about the Kimi Ora unit that we have and the events that all our para athletes do.”
Of the eight chosen to represent Canterbury in the para relays across the junior and senior teams, seven were Papanui High students. Both the junior and senior Canterbury para teams won their relay.
And the benefits go beyond simply sporting success.
“What these students get from that isn’t just about the running or whatever it is they’re competing in, it’s all the other stuff that they’ve learned, giving them confidence that they’re learning life skills,” Lamb said.
“They get that feeling of being included as a team because often students with disabilities don’t get the opportunity to feel like they are part of a team and they are included in things that other children their age are doing, so that’s a massive thing for them.”
Papanui High were awarded the most inclusive school award at the cross country championships.
Lamb said it was down to the level of inclusiveness promoted at the school.
“Here at school and in daily life, our para athletes are included in the mainstream school as much as possible. “Daniel (Wordsworth, who placed fourth in the junior boys 4km), as he was passing the para athletes, he was giving them a cheer, while he was running his own race,’’ Lamb said.
“He was saying ‘come on, you know, you’re doing really well, keep going’ and a couple of the para athletes came back, and they said, ‘Daniel told us we had to go, so we went,’ so it’s just really nice to see that relationship.”
