Holy Family Basketball Hoop Celebration

27 March 2023

What an amazing afternoon we had celebrating the installation of Holy Family School’s new basketball hoops. From shooting hoops, to playing games such as giant jenga and volleyball, the students had an absolute blast. 

Thursday, 23 February was the conclusion of a piece of work that started early last year where Tania Bartley, Nuku Ora Healthy Active Learning Advisor  completed playground mapping and student voice collection on the topic of breaktime play. Holy Family School  had the original portable hoops they received from Capital Basketball many years ago placed in a small area that could be shut off at night. The hoops were only really used by the senior students due to the height of them and could only be used to shoot hoops due to the size of the space.  

“The old hoops were messed up and with these new hoops it’s just easier to play and shoot. We love it,” one student commented.  

Having identified that the students really love playing basketball, but needed more accesible hoops, Tania contacted Damien Ekenasio, General Manager at Capital Zone Basketball Trust, to see how they might be able to help. 

Thanks to an incredible grant from New Zealand Community Trust and Damien’s organisation, we were able to get two Airtime (adjustable) basketball hoops installed in the school on a normal sized basketball court. 

”It’s really nice that there’s been a lot of people [who worked together to] pull this whole thing off. It was a partnership rather than a single entity, so that was nice,” Damien Ekenasio. 

To celebrate the installation of these hoops a fun afternoon was held that included some speeches, cutting of ribbons and then a play afternoon. Deb Houston-Tupoufrom the YMCA brought along theirTākaro Play Trailer  for the tamariki to enjoy.  

“We love doing this sort of stuff with the play trailer, coming out, seeing the kids engage with free play. Kids love the old school games, like connect four and the bowling, teaching those fundamental skills of coordination. Seeing different kids play together that they probably wouldn’t have a relationship with otherwise, that’s the really cool thing about it.”  

These hoops are going to make a huge difference, not only for the tamariki during their breaktime play, but also for their whānau and the community to access afterschool and in the weekends.  

“I think the hoops are two-fold. It’s community, but the kids just love it. You should’ve seen their faces the first day the hoops were up they were so excited. It just makes such a huge difference to play times, to lunch times, so fantastic,” Sue Goodin, Principal of Holy Family School. 

 Tania added that, “Today is an awesome celebration of something that started a while ago and a cool example of working with organisations such as Capital Zone Basketball Trust to make things happen in our schools; see that need, make it happen to the benefit of the tamariki.”