~Awakeri School~

~Top School 2016~

It's early morning, still dark and the garage sale has opened. Hundreds of people look for bargains!	Meanwhile, the hangi is being put in. It was one of the best hangis ever. Beautifully cooked, ready on time....
Fun and games the day before. Lucy Knott has the job of "driving" a wrecked car into its spot for the car wrecking gala game. After quite a battle, it got there.	The Awakeri Top School team are ready to compete. Back: Caden Laurent, Cody Hall, Cambell Julian, Campbell Forsyth Middle: Alex Robbie, Amber Fort, Tayla Jones, Katie Growden, Ayla Rowe Front: Troy Wilson, Codi Laurent. Absent: Brodie Nathan. The two reserves, Troy and Brodie, kindly competed for other schools who were short (Matata Public and Waiotahe). Brodie's team came 2nd in their section and Troy's team came 3rd!
The gala games have begun! Savanah Stewart, Emily Robbie and Ben White whizz around on the magic carpet ride.	The plants section always gets lots of keen customers. Christian Wetting looks at the options before he heads to run the quickfire raffles.
Customers line up to have a turn at smashing cars. $2 a ticket got you five whacks, or ten as the day went on.	Lucy's car is being attacked!
The coffee and cakes stall was very appealing.	Donkey rides, or just patting the donkeys, were very nice.
Now the games are starting. Awakeri is on Stitch In Time. Cambell and Cody are focused to lead the way. Tayla is the boss at the tail, making sure there are no snags. There aren't! Awakeri gets an amazing 18 quoits on the board. The best ever!	Awakeri's cheerleaders have a good set of routines. This year five boys add their skills to the team.
Cody is leading on this lap, as they head back to get another quoit. Tayla has the thread safely out of the last eye. "Go! Go!" she yells.	Awakeri did well on the Watchorns Castle. Katie is quickly onto her feet after coming down the slide.
Alex checks she still has water left as she heads towards to drum at the end.	The horizontal bungee was not one of our better events. Tayla lines up a five pointer (the smaller white bucket).
The cheer leaders keep up their encouragement.	The magic carpet ride takes good team work and thinking. Cambell does the hard job of poling the board up the track, while Codi has the hard job of keeping the drums lined up.
Before the next event, the team always spied out how other teams managed it. This is yet another photo with Mr H in it. His son Ashley had set up a secret sneak a photo task for the day. The Top School facebook page was bombarded!	Awakeri's cheerleaders were spectacular. Elijah does his backward handspring.
Awakeri's final event was Up Up and Away. Caden is in the flying fox, trying to catch the balls thrown to him by cousin Codi. The wind made the job tricky, and some balls had minds of their own!	Cambell and Tayla hold Caden steady to shoot. He got 5 in the white bucket and 2 in the yellow one, for 27 points total. Edgecumbe's amazing shooter got 65 points!
The prize giving. Awakeri are named winners of the cheerleaders by judge and local MP Anne Tolley. Jamie Julian holds the shield aloft.	Awakeri do a couple of routines while the games scores are being calculated.
And the winners are.... Kawerau South! Top School boss Peter Fitzgerald has just completed organising his 31st Top School. Wow! Te Teko and Whakatane Intermediate Year 7s win their sections too.	The day is over. Awakeri ex-pupils Michael and Nicholas Jones and Jacob Davis have the remains of the car! It's been a smashing day!