Netball is well and truly booming at Ashburton Christian School, the newest school/club to join the Mid Canterbury Netball (MCN) family.

The school wrote to Mid Canterbury Netball last year, asking to officially become a member club/school, a request which the MCN board was more than happy to approve, and this year they have three teams happily representing their school at a sport that many had never played up until now.

Ashburton Christian School deputy principal Margaret Butler said some years ago the school entered combined teams with Fairton School, and while that fell by the wayside Ashburton Christian School chilldren were still encouraged to play and directed towards clubs, only a few continued.

After a couple of years of thinking about it, the school decided 2023 was the year to take the plunge, and after officially being welcomed at MCN’s AGM at the end of 2022, three Ashburton Christian School teams have entered the winter competition this season – a year 7/8 team, a year 5/6 team and a year 3/4 team.

“We thought if it’s something we can offer at school, having practices at lunchtime, we might get more children. So, we approached the parents to see if they were interested, and the children, and then approached Mid Canterbury Netball,” Butler said.

Butler said as it turned out they probably could’ve had two year 3-4 teams, and a high school team too, and while they were light on numbers for the year 5-6 team at the beginning, they now had too many. Training at lunchtime meant other children saw what was happening, and wanted to join in.

Ashburton Christian School have a team in the Ashburton New World junior youth year 7-8 competition, playing in the intermediate grade, a team in the year 5-6 grades, and one in the Midlands year 3-4s. In 2024 they’re also planning on having a high school team, which in hindsight they probably could’ve had this year given the interest they’ve had from that age group since the season started.

Butler said they were working at keeping costs low for their players, and MCN’s flexibility around things such as uniforms had helped with that. It meant that they were able to play in their school PE uniform, and didn’t have to go out and buy sets of netball uniforms.

Being able to play in their PE uniforms had also made it easy for boys to join in. Many of the late additions to the teams in the early part of the season, were boys.

“We probably could’ve had a whole boys’ team as it turned out,” Butler said.

With so many players being new to netball, it’s been a huge learning curve for many with learning the rules and new skills, but Butler said they were absolutely loving it and the school was looking forward to building on a great 2023 base, in 2024.

Article added: Friday 09 June 2023