NayCol IOS Warriors take up the wero/challenge at Wairua Warrior 2020

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For the second year in a row the Nayland College Active Pedagogies/Institute of Sport class and a group of their teachers entered in the ‘Wairua Warrior’ obstacle racing event.

The event is a combination of cross-country running and negotiating a range of challenging obstacles. There are various obstacles to negotiate, including monkey bars to swing across, water holes to rope-climb out of, a two-metre wall to clear, tyres to drag and a river to swim across. One of the exciting aspects of this event is the various teams competed against each other, but also encouraged one another and assisted each other over the obstacles at times.

For the 2020 event we had student teams and a staff team race over 6 kilometres and four students and one staff member compete in the open 6km and open 12 kilometre respectively. The most outstanding individual result was Lois Breukel winning the open division of the 6km event overall. Lois beat the second-place woman by nineteen minutes and narrowly beating Seth Siebelink who was first overall male in the open division. Jayden Siebelink finished a minute later placing fourth overall and third male. Jane Townsend (Deputy Principal) placed 1st in the 12km open and placed second overall.

The student teams featured strongly and represented our school with pride in the way they worked together to overcome obstacles and also in the way they supported not only each other, but the teams around them as well.

Our staff team, consisting of Courtney Gravett, Mark Lewers, Andrew Walker and Brennan Geddes, modeled the Nayland College SOAR values by winning their heat and recording the third fastest time out of the 130 teams entered.

The Wairua Warrior event was a wonderful way for both staff and students to work together, utilise each other’s strengths and problem solve in an authentic context within our community. The day was topped off with a swim at Cable Bay to wash off some of the mud before the prize giving. 

By Jane Townsend