Boarding and Sports: Ally

Ally Wollaston, Year 11 student and top cyclist reflects on why she has chosen boarding at St Peter’s, Cambridge and how her learning as well as her cycling is supported here.

I moved to St Peter’s last year from Auckland. I moved mainly due to the fact that there is a velodrome on the school’s backyard! Also, because I wasn’t enjoying school as much as I could.

I think the best thing about boarding at St Peter’s is having a second family. Although it’s sad leaving home, I always look forward to coming back to school. I’m in Wrigley House this year with an extremely crazy bunch of girls! Which only adds to the fun of boarding. Boarding is also so handy with school, and for sport, especially for me with the velodrome just down the road! Boarding makes cycling so easy as I can finish school and just leave straight away for a ride around the local roads and get back in time for dinner. I’ve also found it so much easier to get work done being a boarder as we have prep time in the boarding house. I never thought I’d hear myself say it but being forced to hand in our phones through that time period is really good as it means I can actually get my work done! Boarding is my favourite thing about St Peter’s and I would highly recommend it for those who are interested.

Obviously the amazing facilities provided at St Peter’s are a massive bonus for students. Also I have found all of the staff really friendly and easy to learn from which is great for the academic side of St Peter’s. The other thing I like about St Peter’s is it gives the opportunity for students to try new things. For example, I come from Auckland so I’m a city girl and last year I took agriculture as a subject which was an awesome change and a really random and fun experience. St Peter’s is a very well rounded school which I love as the attention is not just on achieving sports people but also on those who achieve highly in academics and in the performing arts.

Regarding cycling at St Peter’s, I really love the group of girls in my cycling squad as we are all so different but all seem to get along so well. Although we are a team, we still have slight competition between us which improves us as riders as we are pushing each other to new levels.

Ally’s Most Recent Results

2016

Ally won the 500m Time Trial and Points race at the New Zealand Track Cycling Nationals in Invercargill, and came third in the Individual Pursuit.

Ally won all three national road race events in road cycling (U17 girls)- Time Trial, Road Race and Criterium.

Ally was a member of the NZ U17 road racing team which competed in the Canberra Tour in Australia. This is the top junior cycling tour in Australia with the New Zealand team filling 5 of the top 7 places.

Ally was the winner of the Waikato schools road race (U16 girls).

2015

Ally was a member of the St Peter’s Senior Girls team time trial who won the New Zealand Secondary Schools nationals (U20 girls).