Three rural primary schools with a combined role of 200 students – Kakaramea School, St Joseph’s Pātea and Whenuakura School – in the small town of Pātea teamed up last year to establish a Play Trailer, to provide students with new and creative ways to get active during break times.  

Each school had noticed a lack of play opportunities for their students, especially those just starting school, and they wanted to create opportunities for student-led, unstructured play that would foster exploration, creativity, and imagination. So, the schools combined their efforts to find a solution to help each other – the Play Trailer.  

The schools hoped a Play Trailer, which contains ‘loose parts’ such as camo-nets, pipes, old keyboards and pool noodles, would also encourage tamariki to rediscover the joy in being active. And, in turn might lead to more engagement with sport, which had decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With guidance from Sport Taranaki, the schools successfully applied for Tū Manawa funding to make the Play Trailer a reality.  

Initial play items were purchased to get the Play Trailer started, with the aim to source further items from whānau and Taranaki’s zero waste hub, ‘The Junction’. Items that would have otherwise been thrown out would now be transformed into play opportunities for tamariki. 

Aligning with the schools’ tuakana-teina model – where older and younger students work together to support one another's growth and learning – the schools’ senior leadership teams have enjoyed seeing students connect and collaborate. They have observed tamariki, who otherwise would spend time alone, visiting the Play Trailer because there’s always someone to play with and something to do.  

Sharing and maintaining the Play Trailer has proved to be easy. The trailer doesn’t need to be stored in a shed, keeping costs down, and each school takes turns to have the trailer on site. They all contribute to maintenance costs, including the WOF and registration fees.  

The schools all agree a Play Trailer is a low-cost way to provide wonderful and creative play opportunities for tamariki.