February 26, 2025 • 11 mins
School Sport NZ is looking at whether to ban Year 14 students from participating in school sport.
The Maadi Cup has recently clamped down on the practice of keeping a student enrolled for a few extra months after they graduate - just to keep them on the rowing team.
School Sport NZ CEO Mike Summerell spoke to D'Arcy Waldegrave on Sportstalk about whether this ban needs to apply to all sports.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB, school.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sport end Z CEO Mike Summer All joins us now,
Good evening, Mike, Evening, Darcy. It's been a rather large
story recently. It was triggered by Marty Kupp. Obviously, Lake,
there were ton of fine it's about the participation of
year fourteen students in school sport and it's up for
(00:33):
debate again. I believe Mike, you're all coming together as
a crew. Just tell it what happens next. As far
as this eligibility conversation is.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Concerned, Yeah, school Sport New Zealand runs a bi annual
eligibility review every two years, and it just so happens
that that rolls into the start of this year for
incorporation into our rules in twenty twenty six. So it
runs with submission windows open to members and sports to
(01:02):
look at our rules and basically run the ruler over
those to make sure they're fit for purpose. Those submissions
come to the school Sport New Zealand Board who basically
garner a position to go back for member consultation and
consultation with Sports. So then pull all of that back
in and provide a final draft of the rules in
(01:25):
late May so that everybody gets a clear view of
what the rules will look like for the following year
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Right now, this is right across the board, rules, full
stop for participation, eligibility for everything in school sport.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, but it's very focused then on the events that
school sport New Zealand sanction, which are national secondary school
sport events, so that there are two hundred and fifty
plus of those every year, and they're broken into three tiers,
Championship being things like the New Zealand Secondary School Rowing Championships,
rugby football, those really big, pointing end school sport events.
(02:01):
But under that we've got Cup and festival tiers which
are much more focused on participation, and the eligibility in
those tiers isn't as strict and as strong. So realistically,
the eligibility rules that I think are gaining most attention
are most focused on those championships style events, which might
be around eighty events, but they are the large, publicly
(02:24):
interesting events that people like to keep track of.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You tend to apply one law for all or mostly
focused on the championship as opposed to the Cup and
the festival.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, look that there's general eligibility inside of school sport
because school sport is a very specific context, and those
general rules are things like you need to be a
bona fide student at your school, you need to have
studying a full time equivalent timetable, etc. So basically you've
got to check that everybody's a student that is looking
to participate in school sport, but at that championship level
(02:58):
and trying to create as level a playing field as
you possibly can. There are things like new to school
quotas and more specific rules that are very much aimed
at ensuring that there's a level playing field so that
I guess you could get that dream scenario of any
school in New Zealand who work hard can win a
national title.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I'm presuming and touched on first fifteens as well. And
you're probably sick of that conversation, aren't you.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, Look, in fairness, rugby doesn't come up that much
in terms of some of the challenges that we've had
in recent years. It's definitely traditionally had its challenges and
you know, the year fourteen conversation was one inside of
rugby for a long time, but they New Zealand Rugby
made some changes around age banding and school sport across
(03:42):
the board adopted an under eighteen age limit for second
for rugby competitions and really that put to bed the
year fourteen conversation at the same time. So you know,
while rugby still has some of its challenges with youth
participation and where it goes from a rules perspective, nationally,
(04:04):
it's not so much of a conversation at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I was thinking more of schools actively recruiting other schools players.
But that's another story for another day. Mike Summerl joins us.
He is the CEO of school Sport and New Zealand
that year fourteen participation. Now this has come up into
the spotlight because recently the Marty Cup have said no,
we're not having year fourteen students here. It's not right.
(04:29):
So it brings it up. Now you've discussed this before.
This is not unusual. Why has there been no change
up until now? Presuming there is but might not be,
But why the hesitancy do you think, Mike?
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Look, some principles have felt very strongly for some time
to be fair around year fourteen participation. Inside of rowing.
That conversation was mostly pointed at those students that had
picked up overseas scholarship opportunities for rowing, but we're coming
back for very short part of the year to have
(05:04):
another crack at Marty Cup. That was felt like it
was unfair. There was a lot of talk around performance
advantages and the principles use the constitutional process of a
special general meeting to vote that year fourteens be excluded
from MARDI for twenty twenty five. That was a relatively
well run process in the end, and that's been implemented.
(05:28):
School Sport in New Zealand off the back of that
member vote, implemented that rule for twenty twenty five. But
at the same time, there's been this conversation inside of
all of school sport for whether year fourteen should legitimately
be participating inside of national championship level school sport. And
there's a lot of reasons that are sports specific, but
(05:50):
I guess from the educational perspective it's or certainly from
the submissions that we received, is ensuring that everyone gets
a crack, everyone gets a fair share of their chance
in the sun to play at these events, and there
is a feeling that some schools may be bringing back
students solely for the purpose of bolstering their squads for
these events.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Sorry for those slightly longer in the tooth. When you
speak of year fourteen, that would an essence back in
the day be the eighth form. That's after you finished,
you come back again. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
That's right? Yeah. So as part of the Mardi work,
the working group defined what a year fourteen was, and
it's basically your sixth year of secondary schooling. The traditionally
held concept is five years of secondary schooling. So year
fourteen is this idea that you're coming back to have
another extra years of school?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
What do you have to look at? What are you
considerations around this now that the board, the members or
the consultations happening, is that the abuse of the system
is that the amount of schools that actually use year fourteen?
Is it the dominance of the fourteen? What are your
key considerations Mike.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, Look, Darcy, I think all of those. We've got
to be really clear around why you want to limit
somebody's access to anything, and we really need to understand
what the impact of year fourteens is on the national
school sport sector. That there is that performance conversation to have.
There is that conversation around making sure everybody gets their
(07:22):
opportunity to play, But we also know the power of
sport and ensuring that if sport is something that's going
to drive you being involved in education, and you're legitimately
therefore educational purposes, then there's absolutely an argument there that
says that you should have the benefit of playing school sport.
So we've got to be careful. We're not throwing the
baby out with the bathwater. We want people playing sport,
(07:44):
We've got to make sure that there are pathways for
people to do so. But at this championship level that
we're discussing, we also need to make sure that there's
a level playing field. And so I guess the submissions
that the board needs to review is how well though
the participation of those year fourteens is deemed as unfair,
and if so, what could be put in place to
(08:09):
make that a more level playing field?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Say unfair? What does that mean is that the mental maturity,
the physical maturity, the fact they've gone through a number
of years of school what makes it inherently unfair? Anecdotally,
what are people complaining about Mike.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, I think it's sports specific. I think where you've
got those contact sports, then definitely the physical maturation of
a student at that time could be said to be
an unfair advantage. I know through the rowing conversation, it's
just the technical and tactical, tactical aspect of being involved
in a boat for an extra year. You know, there
was a lot of a lot of conversation from people
(08:48):
like Tony O'Connor who are very experienced in rowing and
understanding that space that led those types of conversations. So yeah,
I think it really will be a perse sport conversation.
But from an educational perspective, it is that idea that
it is an extra year year of schooling, and really
who should we be focusing on. Should it be those
(09:11):
kids coming through were not those ones that have had
that extra opportunity already?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Process from now you said board then members consultation, how
does it actually progress and how long we're looking at
before we get a decision for against?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, so submissions for the first round have closed and
it's sitting in front of the board so that they
can I guess guide the next level of consultation, consultation
window for members and sports opens early April and sorry,
early March closes early April. We'll look at all of
(09:45):
those submissions. We'll be running a few forums for sports
and Principles to kind of discuss some of these bigger submissions,
and from there the board will then look at it
put its draft recommendations out again for a further round
of consultation, and all of that will wash out in May,
(10:07):
and the rules will be put out for twenty twenty
six in early June.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And just finally, Mike, and thank you so much for
joining us. How many people are involved in this process
at the board level, spotes, you can count how many
people are going to make submissions. And when you make
a law, is it one law for all will that
run across all sports or will it be something that's
specific for particular sports.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, it's a bit of both, to be completely honest,
I mean that the boards made up of representatives of
principles from around the country. There's twelve people on the
school Sport in New Zealand board. But the rules have
got a general eligibility component that are relevant to all
forms of participation for the events on our calendar. But
then at that championship level, There are some further rules
(10:52):
around eligibility, like new to school quotas, etc. That are
only specific to specific sports, so not every sport has
a new to school quota for example.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
For more from sports talk, listen live to News Talks.
It'd be from seven pm weekday, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB, school.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sport end Z CEO Mike Summer All joins us now,
Good evening, Mike, Evening, Darcy. It's been a rather large
story recently. It was triggered by Marty Kupp. Obviously, Lake,
there were ton of fine it's about the participation of
year fourteen students in school sport and it's up for
(00:33):
debate again. I believe Mike, you're all coming together as
a crew. Just tell it what happens next. As far
as this eligibility conversation is.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Concerned, Yeah, school Sport New Zealand runs a bi annual
eligibility review every two years, and it just so happens
that that rolls into the start of this year for
incorporation into our rules in twenty twenty six. So it
runs with submission windows open to members and sports to
(01:02):
look at our rules and basically run the ruler over
those to make sure they're fit for purpose. Those submissions
come to the school Sport New Zealand Board who basically
garner a position to go back for member consultation and
consultation with Sports. So then pull all of that back
in and provide a final draft of the rules in
(01:25):
late May so that everybody gets a clear view of
what the rules will look like for the following year
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Right now, this is right across the board, rules, full
stop for participation, eligibility for everything in school sport.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, but it's very focused then on the events that
school sport New Zealand sanction, which are national secondary school
sport events, so that there are two hundred and fifty
plus of those every year, and they're broken into three tiers,
Championship being things like the New Zealand Secondary School Rowing Championships,
rugby football, those really big, pointing end school sport events.
(02:01):
But under that we've got Cup and festival tiers which
are much more focused on participation, and the eligibility in
those tiers isn't as strict and as strong. So realistically,
the eligibility rules that I think are gaining most attention
are most focused on those championships style events, which might
be around eighty events, but they are the large, publicly
(02:24):
interesting events that people like to keep track of.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You tend to apply one law for all or mostly
focused on the championship as opposed to the Cup and
the festival.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, look that there's general eligibility inside of school sport
because school sport is a very specific context, and those
general rules are things like you need to be a
bona fide student at your school, you need to have
studying a full time equivalent timetable, etc. So basically you've
got to check that everybody's a student that is looking
to participate in school sport, but at that championship level
(02:58):
and trying to create as level a playing field as
you possibly can. There are things like new to school
quotas and more specific rules that are very much aimed
at ensuring that there's a level playing field so that
I guess you could get that dream scenario of any
school in New Zealand who work hard can win a
national title.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I'm presuming and touched on first fifteens as well. And
you're probably sick of that conversation, aren't you.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, Look, in fairness, rugby doesn't come up that much
in terms of some of the challenges that we've had
in recent years. It's definitely traditionally had its challenges and
you know, the year fourteen conversation was one inside of
rugby for a long time, but they New Zealand Rugby
made some changes around age banding and school sport across
(03:42):
the board adopted an under eighteen age limit for second
for rugby competitions and really that put to bed the
year fourteen conversation at the same time. So you know,
while rugby still has some of its challenges with youth
participation and where it goes from a rules perspective, nationally,
(04:04):
it's not so much of a conversation at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I was thinking more of schools actively recruiting other schools players.
But that's another story for another day. Mike Summerl joins us.
He is the CEO of school Sport and New Zealand
that year fourteen participation. Now this has come up into
the spotlight because recently the Marty Cup have said no,
we're not having year fourteen students here. It's not right.
(04:29):
So it brings it up. Now you've discussed this before.
This is not unusual. Why has there been no change
up until now? Presuming there is but might not be,
But why the hesitancy do you think, Mike?
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Look, some principles have felt very strongly for some time
to be fair around year fourteen participation. Inside of rowing.
That conversation was mostly pointed at those students that had
picked up overseas scholarship opportunities for rowing, but we're coming
back for very short part of the year to have
(05:04):
another crack at Marty Cup. That was felt like it
was unfair. There was a lot of talk around performance
advantages and the principles use the constitutional process of a
special general meeting to vote that year fourteens be excluded
from MARDI for twenty twenty five. That was a relatively
well run process in the end, and that's been implemented.
(05:28):
School Sport in New Zealand off the back of that
member vote, implemented that rule for twenty twenty five. But
at the same time, there's been this conversation inside of
all of school sport for whether year fourteen should legitimately
be participating inside of national championship level school sport. And
there's a lot of reasons that are sports specific, but
(05:50):
I guess from the educational perspective it's or certainly from
the submissions that we received, is ensuring that everyone gets
a crack, everyone gets a fair share of their chance
in the sun to play at these events, and there
is a feeling that some schools may be bringing back
students solely for the purpose of bolstering their squads for
these events.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Sorry for those slightly longer in the tooth. When you
speak of year fourteen, that would an essence back in
the day be the eighth form. That's after you finished,
you come back again. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
That's right? Yeah. So as part of the Mardi work,
the working group defined what a year fourteen was, and
it's basically your sixth year of secondary schooling. The traditionally
held concept is five years of secondary schooling. So year
fourteen is this idea that you're coming back to have
another extra years of school?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
What do you have to look at? What are you
considerations around this now that the board, the members or
the consultations happening, is that the abuse of the system
is that the amount of schools that actually use year fourteen?
Is it the dominance of the fourteen? What are your
key considerations Mike.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, Look, Darcy, I think all of those. We've got
to be really clear around why you want to limit
somebody's access to anything, and we really need to understand
what the impact of year fourteens is on the national
school sport sector. That there is that performance conversation to have.
There is that conversation around making sure everybody gets their
(07:22):
opportunity to play, But we also know the power of
sport and ensuring that if sport is something that's going
to drive you being involved in education, and you're legitimately
therefore educational purposes, then there's absolutely an argument there that
says that you should have the benefit of playing school sport.
So we've got to be careful. We're not throwing the
baby out with the bathwater. We want people playing sport,
(07:44):
We've got to make sure that there are pathways for
people to do so. But at this championship level that
we're discussing, we also need to make sure that there's
a level playing field. And so I guess the submissions
that the board needs to review is how well though
the participation of those year fourteens is deemed as unfair,
and if so, what could be put in place to
(08:09):
make that a more level playing field?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Say unfair? What does that mean is that the mental maturity,
the physical maturity, the fact they've gone through a number
of years of school what makes it inherently unfair? Anecdotally,
what are people complaining about Mike.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, I think it's sports specific. I think where you've
got those contact sports, then definitely the physical maturation of
a student at that time could be said to be
an unfair advantage. I know through the rowing conversation, it's
just the technical and tactical, tactical aspect of being involved
in a boat for an extra year. You know, there
was a lot of a lot of conversation from people
(08:48):
like Tony O'Connor who are very experienced in rowing and
understanding that space that led those types of conversations. So yeah,
I think it really will be a perse sport conversation.
But from an educational perspective, it is that idea that
it is an extra year year of schooling, and really
who should we be focusing on. Should it be those
(09:11):
kids coming through were not those ones that have had
that extra opportunity already?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Process from now you said board then members consultation, how
does it actually progress and how long we're looking at
before we get a decision for against?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, so submissions for the first round have closed and
it's sitting in front of the board so that they
can I guess guide the next level of consultation, consultation
window for members and sports opens early April and sorry,
early March closes early April. We'll look at all of
(09:45):
those submissions. We'll be running a few forums for sports
and Principles to kind of discuss some of these bigger submissions,
and from there the board will then look at it
put its draft recommendations out again for a further round
of consultation, and all of that will wash out in May,
(10:07):
and the rules will be put out for twenty twenty
six in early June.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And just finally, Mike, and thank you so much for
joining us. How many people are involved in this process
at the board level, spotes, you can count how many
people are going to make submissions. And when you make
a law, is it one law for all will that
run across all sports or will it be something that's
specific for particular sports.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, it's a bit of both, to be completely honest,
I mean that the boards made up of representatives of
principles from around the country. There's twelve people on the
school Sport in New Zealand board. But the rules have
got a general eligibility component that are relevant to all
forms of participation for the events on our calendar. But
then at that championship level, There are some further rules
(10:52):
around eligibility, like new to school quotas, etc. That are
only specific to specific sports, so not every sport has
a new to school quota for example.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
For more from sports talk, listen live to News Talks.
It'd be from seven pm weekday, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!