The 2025 Zespri Aims Games start tomorrow with more than 200 students from the wider Te Puke area taking part in Australasia’s largest junior sporting event.

Te Puke Intermediate School would be represented by 159 students competing in 24 codes.

Traditionally leading the charge for glory has been the school’s boys’ sevens team, which consistently performs well and won the gold medal in 2016, 2018, 2022 and 2023 and took out the third and fourth place play-off last year.

Last year the school was named the best in the squash competition and won bronze and silver medals in squash and canoeing.

The school now has sports academies for rugby, netball, hockey and football.

But sports co-ordinator Cam Black said there’s so much more to Aims Games than winning.

Te Puke Intermediate School’s boys’ rugby sevens side warmed up for AIMS Games with a win in the Super 11 sevens competition. The girls team finished second in the girls’ tournament. Photo / Supplied

“There’s no doubt about it, we want all our teams to compete and do well, but it’s a game-by-game basis – you take every game, and you treat it seriously and try and do your best.

He said coaches were likely to have set their own goals with their teams.

“But as a school we just want our students to go along, do their best, be the best version of themselves, represent themselves, their whanau and the school. If they do that, everyone’s going to have fun and it’s going to be great.”

He said the event also offered opportunities to learn valuable life skills: “Turning up on time, being punctual, being in the right place – those life-organisation skills”.

Resilience was another.

“Sport is a key avenue where win or lose you can only do your best, give it your best shot and still be proud – even if you do lose, you can walk away going ‘we gave it everything’ and that’s all you can really ask for.”

Following in the footsteps of Charlie Ward who last year was the school’s first Athletes with Disabilities representative in the indoor bowls and cross-country, students Dhalia and Mahy (indoor bowls) and Mercedes (cross-country) will represent Te Puke Intermediate in 2025.

“They have been working hard and training in the gym and we are really looking forward to them representing TPI and giving it their best shot like everyone else.”

Being, relatively speaking, a stone’s throw from the event gives Te Puke Intermediate School students an immediate advantage over some schools.

“They are at home every night, sleeping in their own beds.”

The advantage becomes greater if the weather turns.

“It’s a challenging week for us, for travelling teams it’s really, really hard if the weather doesn’t play its part.”

Black said there was a lot of support from the local business community in terms of sponsorship and from the wider school community when it comes to making sure students get to their events.

“While the school puts together vans for the bigger teams, the community and whānau just pool and carpool and do everything for the smaller teams. It’s a massive team effort – it’s certainly not just the school doing it, it’s a community effort and I’d like to acknowledge them for that.”

Te Puke Intermediate School students (left to right) Tessa, Sammy, Alex, Georgia, Zac, Liam, Nikau and Trey are ready for the 2025 Zespri AIMS Games. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

Aims Games also gave the opportunity for students from smaller rural schools to experience being part of a large sporting event.

Ōtamarākau School has students competing at indoor bowls and table tennis.

“We always share with our students the opportunity to participate in Aims and look to see who’s interested, because obviously sport isn’t for all students, for some it’s the arts,” said principal Aneta Smith.

“Being a small school, we don’t have the numbers to select from to put teams together for the likes of sevens or basketball, so we have to look at the other sports that are being offered.”

Teacher Sean Crotty has been helping the students prepare for the table tennis competition and Tauranga Indoor Bowls secretary Bronwyn Clarke has been assisting the indoor bowlers prepare.

“We’ve been fortunate to have her guidance.”

The school was also looking to the future.

“As part of our programmes of learning we’ve been working with our Year 4-5 students and they’ve been attending surfing lessons... so that would lead into Aims once they reach that Year 7-8 group.”

Smith said Aims Games offered an amazing opportunity to students.

“To be part of it is huge. We know from previous years, students always come back motivated and inspired – so that’s the main purpose behind giving students that opportunity, and to see how big sport is out there.”

Traditionally, Te Ranga School has sent a mixed hockey team to the games - but this year things are a little different with the school having a mixed netball team.

“Historically we’ve not really had a netball team in our school – historically we are a hockey school. But the hockey cohort basically left last year and now we’re onto a new cohort and for this year and the next few years netball is the main sport for a lot of the girls coming through,” said Year 7 and 8 teacher and sports coordinator Patrick Barret.

The signs were that it could continue.

“We’ve got a lot of boys in Year 3-4 and Year 5-6 playing netball and we can see them hopefully sticking with it.”

Students would also be competing in squash, cross-country and orienteering.

Orienteer and ultra-runner Dennis de Monchy visited the school last year and sparked interest in orienteering.

“Three or four of them said ‘this is really cool’ and now we have one student who had tried other sports but decided this was her niche.

“It involves problem solving and you’ve got to be physically fit at the same time for a sport like that – it’s really cool to have that at Aims.”

Barret said the goal was always to get as many students as possible involved in Aims Games.

“We’ve had a big uptake this year in table tennis. We’ve always had table tennis in the school, and this year had a mixture of students who are keen, and they want to do a bit more with it.

“I put it to them, and they said were keen and want to get involved and for those guys it’s a way to represent the school.”

“I love to get the school’s name out there in any sort ultimately our goal is to promote our school and showcase that even though we are a small rural school we can actually compete against larger schools.”

Students from Pongakawa and Rangiuru Schools were also taking part in the 2025 Aims Games, which run until September 5.