Our Own Junior All Blacks!

Three teams represented Yendarra School at this year’s Otara schools rugby competition held at Bruce Pulman park in Papakura.  We had trained for four weeks and all players were keen to showcase all their new learning and hard work from training! Preparing for the competition was exciting and exhausting as everyone was learning in class and training during break times. This also included extra fitness training after school that needed to be done in the players own time.

On competition day we launched our new sport uniform which we were so proud to wear.  Our families loved our new uniforms and our friends from neighbouring schools did not know who we were when we arrived so it was a precious moment to be the first sports team to share our new uniform colours and style.

 We want to THANK Auckland Rugby Pro Sport boys, Mr Gary Peach and Jarrod Syman for their support to prepare our boys for competition day.

To coach Selina Crosby who will always be a member of the Yendarra whanau for her commitment to improving the sporting success and skill of all our tamariki.

Finally to our own teachers and parents who coach, mentor, encourage and support our teams to 

Be the BEST they can!

We were victorious on competition day and 2 from 3 teams were crowned ‘first place’ for the Under 40kg and Under 50kg divisions!  This meant we were on our way as qualifiers to the AUCKLAND CHAMPIONS OF CHAMPIONS in Panmure.  The Champions of Champions competition is facilitated by Auckland rugby union and the primary schools placed first all over Auckland compete to win the title of ‘Auckland Champion’.  Attending the competition made many of the players nervous and anxious as they were about to be confronted on the rugby field by the best rugby teams in Auckland.  Yendarra had not had the opportunity to qualify for this competition since 2010 when we took 1 from 4 teams to the competition so it was a special moment to finally return to champions of champions four years on……

We are excited about our up and coming talent and look forward to preparing for another season of rugby in 2015!

Room 19 is on the Jam Bus

This year some boys were selected from Room 19 to take part in making this year’s new volume 2 music CD.  The mobile recording company called Jam Bus arrived at our school to record our live vocals from the choir, stringed sound from our guitar club and pacific flavour from our ukulele group.  All groups practised for three and half weeks before live recording and the expertise of our music teachers Miss Tipelu, Ms Cook, Ms Sewell, Miss Tuli 1 & 2, Mrs Greig and Mr Greig ensured everyone learnt their songs and chords before the big day.

 Everyone involved can’t wait for the CD to return to school in Term 4 so this can be shared with everyone in the Yendarra whanau.  The guitar and ukulele group were an addition to what was performed in the previous year when only teachers played instruments to accompany the student choir.  Learning the guitar and ukulele has been challenging but inspiring for the boys involved (Thyrel, Bayley, Latrell, Marcus and Makatama) and it will be great when the boys can teach others in Room 19 for next year.

We say a HUGE thank you to the Jam Bus team from the

 for bringing to life our musical gifts and talents. Being a part of the programme has inspired many of our musicians to continue the music journey as they get older.