In the last twelve months the Secondary School sports space has undergone some changes to support quality delivery of sport and recreation activities for our secondary schools students across the Waikato region.

In early 2017 the Waikato Secondary Schools Sports Association Incorporated (WSSSA) was formally inaugurated as a collective of principals, supported by Sport Waikato, and adopted a constitution to help govern secondary school sport in the region.

Now under an elected executive committee of Secondary School Principals and Sport Waikato CEO Matthew Cooper, they represent the principals from the all Central North Island Secondary School Principals Association (CNISSPA) in matters relating to schools sport. The chairman of the group Kelvin Whiting of Hillcrest High School is the local representative to the New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council (NZSSC) board.
 
The WSSSA is supported by Sport Waikato in its day to day management through the employment of two staff, an Executive Director (Tony Rogers) and Development Officer (Abigail Whiu). The organisation supports delivery of over 35 sports codes through its working relationship with the Regional Sports bodies [RSOs] and event facilitators. One key aspect of the organisation is the sanctioning approval process of an effective calendar of sporting events for the schools within the region.
 
In the last year there have been several key projects for this group. First was to establish governance structure including adoption of operational by-laws for schools to aid management of the school sport competitions. Second has been the development of a stand-alone single, one stop portal for secondary sport that will be launched later this year. The third key priority has been to identify and align competition structures for secondary school sport delivery, particularly for major codes in the first instance.
 
The Waikato region has a proud heritage of developing youth talent to the international arena from provincial New Zealand and endorses its young people being 'out there and active' .