Students and Staff at Awatapu College are brewing over the results an interhouse competition held this week.
On Monday, as part of the school’s annual Arts Week, each of the school's four houses – Hillary, Ngata, Rutherford and Sheppard – had a dance team participate in an interhouse dance competition with the results decided by three judges (one each associated with Ngata, Rutherford and Sheppard). The inclusion of a two Sheppard House students in the winning Rutherford’s dance team has caused questions to be raised by students and staff about whether this would be regarded as cheating and if so, should Rutherford be disqualified. One of the students was a student leader for the school.
As a result of winning the competition, Rutherford gained the maximum number of house points available for the competition as well as points for its many participants. The house with the most house points at the end of the school year, will win Te Parata – the school’s interhouse trophy. It is rumoured that Sheppard House (who gained fourth place in the competition) are first in line for the trophy at the moment, but the win from Rutherford on Monday could have put them in the lead.
Some students claim that one of the Sheppard students had previously asked the organisers of the competition – Performing Arts Coordinator Erna Ferry and Arts Captain Amy Atkins – if they could perform in Rutherford’s dance, and they allowed this to happen. Rumours are circulating that the student leader didn’t get dispensation from Ferry and Atkins.
All House leaders met with the school’s senior management yesterday and a decision on whether a disqualification should take place has not been released.
Mark you are not even involved in this. It was [not] a case of cheating it was whether it was considered 'right' or 'wrong'. The dance was performed on the two soiree evenings without the Sheppard dancers and was exactly the same. They were not involved in the choreography or music so that was not cheating. Their participation was simply for fun as that is what the entire house competition [was] for.