Snells Beach Primary School is grateful to New Zealand Community Trust for a grant of $6,401 towards providing bikes for all their students to enjoy the school’s asphalt bike track featuring jumps and other obstacles that was built in 2019.
Administrative Assistant Marissa Bale said, “This track has been massively utilised by the school children and outside of school hours by the wider community. This year with the assistance of another NZCT grant, we are taking the use of bikes within our school to the next level. As part of the Bikes in Schools programme, we have purchased a forty-foot, custom-fitted storage container to house a fleet of fifty bikes and helmets in varying sizes. This will enable us to incorporate cycling into our physical education curriculum and give those students who don't have access to a bike the chance to cycle in break times.”
Snells Beach School/Te Manu o te Ngahere opened in 2009 to provide education for students in years 1-6 in the Mahurangi East area. Located forty-five minutes north of Auckland, it is situated above scenic Snells Beach, overlooking Kawau Bay on one side, and the Mahurangi River on the other. As a comparatively small and semi-rural school with a current roll of only 328 students, both staff and students value being actively involved in their beautiful natural surroundings, getting wet, sandy, and muddy, as they explore the local beaches, trails, and parks. It celebrates the cultural diversity of its students and believes in supporting all learners to achieve their best. The school acknowledges Ngati Manuhiri as mana whenua and they gifted the school the name Te Manu o te Ngahere (the bird of the forest).