Rollands Plains Upper Public School students ace NSW PSSA Championships

Rollands Plains Upper Public School students have returned from the NSW Primary School Sports Association (PSSA) Athletics Championship with medals, certificates and a big achievement for the small school.

The senior relay 4x100m team made up of Year 6 students Oliver Regan, Angus Mackay, Stan Sippel and Year 5 student Lucas Gray travelled to Sydney Olympic Park to compete with other small schools from across NSW.

The team made their way to the finals after winning the semi-finals race and smashing their personal best in the qualifying heats.

The finals were a close race for the team who came from behind to finish in second place by only 0.01 seconds against Binya Public School.

Angus Mackay said that it felt amazing to compete in the championships.

"No one has qualified in this school to get to state for 50 years," he said.

The team has put in extensive effort to make it to the State event with the boys giving up time during their holidays and weekends to train.

The team also competed in several sports carnivals and the North Coast Athletics Championship in order to qualify for State.

Rollands Plains Upper Public School teacher Craig Ainsworth coached the team but they later received training from district office staff member Rachael Adlington.

Her knowledge on baton changes helped improve the team's personal best by eight seconds.

"We really hadn't done much relay practice so we really focused on the baton changes," Oliver said.

"Once we got the changes through that helped improve our time by multiple seconds...and everything got better," Oliver said.

Mr Ainsworth said that Ms Adlington's skill set and knowledge was invaluable to the boys.

"Once they had won at the North Coast race, they needed something far more technical that I couldn't give and that's why we bought in another coach," he said.

The team agreed with Mr Ainsworth that the technical aspect was hard to grasp at first.

"But we got it in the end and we were use to it, " Stan said.

It's been a proud moment not just for the boys but for entire Rollands Plains Upper Public School community.

The school of 24 students gathered around the screen to watch the live stream of the team running at the Championship.

Principal Katie Smith said that she was very proud of the way the boys conducted themselves at the competition.

"At every meet the boys demonstrated exemplary sportsmanship and were wonderful representatives for our school and community," she said.

While most of the team will be leaving next year for high school, other students at the school have been inspired by the boy's achievements.

"These boys have shown...if you want to put the time and the effort into something and you want to commit to something, anything is achievable," Mr Ainsworth said.

"If you want it, you make it happen."

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