On the last Friday of term 3, Mrs Busfield, Artem, Ritika, Jayden and Lucas got up REALLY early and flew to Auckland for the NZ Chess Federation Interschool Nationals.

We had been invited due to winning the Canterbury regional tournament (the junior team won too, however taking all eight players didn’t work out this year).

As we got up to Auckland so early, we spent the day at Rainbow's End. Everyone had a great time on the various rides and for two it was their first ride on a roller coaster (one LOVED it, and the other...not so much!). We checked into our AirBnB, had some dinner, learnt how to play pool (there was a table at our AirBnB) and headed off to bed.

On Saturday, we drove to St Kentigern's College - about 7 minutes away (3 of those included Mrs B backing up our super narrow driveway!). We were blown away by the size of St Kentigerns and the beautiful ground - there were pohutukawa trees, huge fields and a beautiful view of the harbour. The gym was massive with a mezzanine to watch from, and another two gyms attached, with a work out centre with gym equipment (massive) and a big dance studio.

At this chess competition, there were 23 teams in the Primary division, 24 in the Intermediates and 19 in the Seniors - 264 chess players, plus some schools had reserves as well. The competition was tough, with some of the best young chess players in New Zealand. The children each had a board number and had to play that position each game. Scores from individual games were added together to give a team total at the end of each round. Avonhead won two rounds, drew two rounds and lost 3 rounds. We finished 15th overall, and the top South Island team. There were also medals for the top players at each board position. Ritika won this for board two, having won 6 out of her 7 games.
It was interesting to note the amount of chess played in the North Island, particularly Auckland. Where we were the top Canterbury school, and qualified against 12 other teams, some of the Auckland schools had to qualify in a tournament with 60+ teams. Auckland has so much chess being played that it is split up into areas, and there were multiple Auckland teams in the tournament. This is great to see, but makes me wonder what we can do in Canterbury to get more chess being played. Awesome things about our trip:

• the support the four children gave to each other
• the resilience shown when the going got tough, games were lost and heads went down. It would have been easy to stay negative and upset, but everytime, they picked themselves back up and tried their best in their next game
• the camaraderie between the Avonhead and Oaklands students - the students from both schools got on so well with each other, and supported each other throughout the tournament

Thank you to everyone who supported our trip through buying Juicies, and a huge thank you to the Christchurch City Council Youth Development Fund (Fendalton-Waimairi-Harewood and Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton) and the Riccarton Rotary Club for giving us grants to go towards our trip. This money went towards covering some of the cost of our flights and accommodation.

And finally, a huge congratulations to our four players. Artem, Ritika, Jayden and Lucas - it was a pleasure to take them away to Auckland, and I was incredibly proud of their efforts during the tournament.  

Thank you, Darelle Busfield.