Schools Focus Group
PURPOSE:
The Cycling New Zealand Schools Focus group is for a selected group of school cyclists who, on behalf of their fellow riders, provide feedback and advocate for the continued development of the Schools Cycling programme.
The Focus Group is established by the Cycling New Zealand Schools (CNZS) Executive and is maintained by Cycling New Zealand (CNZ) through their partnership agreement.
The purpose of the Focus Group is to support the continued development of the Schools cycling programme with the following focus.
- To provide feedback on how to increase participation and growth in schools cycling;
- To advocate for cycling as a sport in their school and region;
- To advocate the ‘Balance is better’ philosophy and provide feedback to support the initiative through to Sport NZ;
- To ensure relevant and appropriate information is being provided through the available platforms;
- To help to ensure that a sustainable, suitable and effective range of support and information exists to support student’s continuation in the sport of cycling post school.
Please click here to read the Terms of Reference.
2025 APPLICATIONS ARE NOW LIVE. Applications close at 5pm on Monday 24 February. Submit your application here today!
2024 SCHOOL FOCUS GROUP MEMBERS:
We have an awesome team of 12 riders in our Schools Focus Group for 2024. The group has been working hard to improve our Schools Cycling community. The groups main focus for this year so far has been to increase participation and to make our events fun for all involved!
Some ideas that the group has thought of so far that CNZS will be implementing going forward:
- Sharing more information across our Schools Cycling Social media platforms to get those involved and aware of events and sharing important updates
- Knowledge and workshops provided around Sport Integrity to our riders and involvement at events
- Expansion of a riders toolkit that includes the use of feeder schools to help younger and new riders into the Schools Cycling program, as well as the support from 'Optimize my Ride'. This making more resources available to our cycling community
- Additional events to our Schools track programs- the standing 250m event
- Organising and arranging safe transport at our Schools events. For example at the NZSS Northern Tour, putting out group rides from the ITT to the Hill Climb so riders can go together in bunches.
2023 SCHOOLS FOCUS GROUP MEMBERS:
The seven students below worked together in 2023 to help make schools cycling better.
Some ideas the group thought of and CNZS will be trying to implement in 2024 includes:
- Changing the way top school trophies are awarded, streamlining this system across all events and recognising smaller schools to help them be competitive also.
- The idea of adding CX team relays to the North and South Island Champs events.
- Promoting cross-code participation in particular getting more riders to try CX and promoting this to the MTB and Road riders more specifically.
- Adding more off the podium awards/prizes, looking at the Schools Cycling Passion Award across all events.
- Encouraging organisers to have some off the bike / fun races and games around the main events,
2022 SCHOOLS FOCUS GROUP MEMBERS:
The nine students below worked together in 2022 to help make schools cycling better.
Some ideas the group thought of and CNZS has implemented includes:
- Creating a 'What's Happening in the Regions' section of the website and in the monthly newsletter.
- Creating a generic sponsorship template, for any school team to copy and update as a starting point to try and get sponsorship for their school cycling team.
- Creating a Schools Leavers section of the website for info for riders finishing school to find out a bit more about what the main NZ universities offer for cycling to continue in the sport.
2021 SCHOOLS FOCUS GROUP MEMBERS:
The eight students below worked together during 2021 to help improve Schools Cycling.
