By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE
After 110 years, Te Teko School in the Eastern Bay of Plenty finally has a proper playground and children will no longer have to amuse themselves in a bare paddock.
The state-of-the-art kitset timber and plastic construction, assembled by parents, was formally blessed on Monday.
And the students,
aged from 5 to 12, can't keep the smiles off their faces.
The play equipment includes various climbers, a tunnel, a wave slide, sway bridge, barrel roller, balancing log, commando net, fireman's pole and a flying fox.
The project has been on the wish-list of the decile-one school - roll just under 100 - for at least 20 years, says board of trustees member Tepora Hona, who kickstarted the fundraising for it last June.
By October, half the $24,000 needed had been raised by the community, much of it from volunteers catering for visitors to a local marae.
The school contributed a further $10,000 and $2000 came from the Lottery Grants Board.
Parents had hoped for a bigger grant so a large sandpit could be built at the end of the adventure playground.
That, and a shade sail, are the next things on the wish-list.
Getting a playground for the bilingual school in a community where 80 per cent of the population are beneficiaries was Mrs Hona's driving ambition.
When she was a pupil 40 years ago the school had an old jungle gym, but it was later judged unsafe and removed.
Her first three children, now in their 20s, were among those who had to create their own games. Now, with a second family - children aged 9, 7 and 6 - at the school, Mrs Hona says she realises how much the older ones missed out.
"I had a passion to get a real playground. But wonderful as it is, it's still not big enough."
Te Teko School, which had a roll of 600 at its peak, has long been losing students to better supported and equipped country schools near the township.
But the playground, says Mrs Hona, is a promise of things to come.
