03/09/2026
Annie's speech from our recent Open Evening! 👏✨
"I’ve been thinking about the night I came along with my mum to this same event {Open Evening} with a mix of nerves and excitement as I saw all of the new faces that would form part of my incoming year nine cohort – the people I would be spending the next five years with. I spent my primary school years at Thames South School and then on to Te Puru School – and I thought those schools would be a hard act to follow.
The transition is a big one and high school is certainly different (especially because you’ll also be diving into your teenage years – note to parents navigating this for the first time – we all turn out OK in the end!).
I took a little time to adjust, but a lot of that was fast-tracked due to getting involved in sport, which is what I want to talk to you about tonight. You will open your school year with swimming and athletic days, and I have to say experiencing the last of those earlier in the year was really tinged with sadness. Trust me, they’re fun guys!
In my first year I played netball and basketball – two completely new sports for me. I also played in our hockey team out at Ngatea and over the next few years, I signed up for countless sports. In year 11 I began playing football – and headed off to tournament week in Palmerston North with a fantastic group of girls. Even in my final year at school, Thames High is still allowing me to pursue new sports. This year I joined the girls' 1st XV, which has been a definite highlight.
I was also lucky enough to get selected for the Thames High School Senior Mixed Touch Team, and we’ve been training all year as we prepare for the Nationals in December. Last year the team finished 8th – a massive achievement for a small-town school playing other teams with rolls exceeding 1,500 plus students. If I were in a bigger school, it would be harder for me to access all these sporting opportunities, which I will no doubt remember for the rest of my life.
If parents and students want to introduce a new sport, Tess, our sports co-ordinator, and the school will do their best to make it happen. When I was going through a rocky period in Year 10, a mentor asked me if there was anything I wanted to pursue – and I mentioned my new interest in golf. From there, we re-entered the Thames Valley Secondary Schools inter-school golf tournament. The key goal at Thames High is to ensure sport is accessible to every student, focusing on participation, fun and development for ALL, no matter what level you can participate at.
You will hear it time and time again, but sign up for anything that interests you, sports or otherwise. Sport in particular kept me fit and helped me tremendously mentally through the past few years. It has the power to build you into a better person in terms of discipline, commitment, teamwork, resilience and of course social networks. Like everything, if you put in the effort, the pathways are there to take your sport as far as you want to take it. Get into it – you won’t regret it! "
