At the start of the school year, Sport Canterbury set a challenge to Canterbury schools to get their students to collaborate, communicate and think critically – as part of the ‘You Got Game?’ initiative.
 
'You Got Game?' tasked individuals or groups of primary school students across Canterbury to come up with a brand new game to incorporate into the Top Team Challenge, starting in Term 3 2020.
 
Each year, Sport Canterbury's Top Team Challenge engages over 18,000 Cantabrians of all ages. The challenge consists of a series of fun, interactive games that participants take on in a team format. In these unprecedented times, it is creative way to keep people of all ages active and inspired and has never been more relevant for our communities.
 
The competition came to a close on Friday 26 June, with a total of 40 entries from six different schools across Canterbury. These included: Thorrington Primary School, South Hornby Primary School, Prebbleton Primary School, Oaklands Primary School, Lincoln High School and Banks Ave Primary School.
 
Many schools involved entire year groups in the competition, with Thorrington School encouraging all 150 Year 5 and 6 Tuakana students to take part. On 19 June, we headed out to Thorrington school hall to watch the groups present their games to their peers and had a chat with the students about their ‘You Got Game?’ experience. 
 
When asked what they liked most about the ‘You Got Game’ competition, Year 5 student Lachlan responded: “I was able to make a new game and see how creative everyone could be.”
 
During the session, the students were asked to vote for their top three games to be submitted on behalf of the school.
“We put the voting criteria to the kids so they could decide on how they were going to judge each game,” said teacher Mrs Reynolds.
 
On Monday 23 June, the top three Thorrington  teams were selected to represent the school, to be judged against other school’s entries.
In first place was Isaac, Jack, Georgie K, Anya with the Slip ‘n’ Tug Challenge.
In second place was Georgie N, Eve H with the Where’s Wally Puzzle.
In third place was Ben, Olivia and Zara with the Hop ‘n’ Slide Challenge.
 
The winning contestants will be announced at the beginning of Term 3 and will have their game built by the Sport Canterbury team for use across the region during the 2020/21 Top Team Challenge season. The winner will also have the opportunity to name their game and win a free Top Team Challenge for their school. 

For more information on the Top Team Challenge visit - https://www.sportcanterbury.org.nz/Events-and-Activities/Top-Team-Challenge

Follow Sport Canterbury on facebook for the winner announcement - https://www.facebook.com/sportcanterburynz/?ref=bookmarks 

Article added: Thursday 02 July 2020