4 December 2018

Last month Aquinas College, Ringwood, was recognised by Netball Victoria as ‘School of the Year’ at its Community Awards.

Netball Victoria selected Aquinas College because the school ‘has championed the inclusion of boys in netball for the past 10 years. Through their local sporting association, Aquinas College has developed weekly competitions for boys in years nine and ten. They have also entered both boys and girls teams in the Netball Victoria Schools Championships, winning the 2018 junior boys title and runners-up in the senior boys division.’

Aquinas College Sports Coordinator, Bernie, describes how the boys netball program developed:

The boys netball program at Aquinas probably started about eight/nine years ago. We started just having one off teams that some staff were interested in putting into the State Netball Championships because our local association was starting to also look towards boys netball. So through staff interest we started running the program and it’s just gone from there and it’s grown.

Getting boys interested early on, not a problem at all. They just felt it was another opportunity to be involved in another activity. Once they started doing it they really got keen and got involved.

Netball is now one of the more popular sports at Aquinas College as it is offering a new challenge and set of athletic skills to students.

Year 8 student, Harry said, ‘It’s really fun, I really like the fast pace of it. You’re not allowed to run with the ball, so it’s a bit different to basketball and other sports that I play but I really enjoy netball. It’s the 21st century so you can try anything really, any sport it doesn’t really matter.’

Netball Victoria recognised local champions of the Victorian netball community with the 2018 Netball Victoria Community Awards. Winners from the eight categories received $500 each.