Schools have an important role in promoting sport through the co-curricular programmes they offer. These programmes allow learners to build on and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they develop in the school's physical education curriculum. 

The effective promotion and organisation of school sport should reflect the needs of learners and ensure that all tamariki have the opportunity to:

• participate to the highest level of their interest and ability

• experience enjoyment and achievement

• become competent and enthusiastic participants

• practise fair play (in the widest interpretation of the term) in all situations

• experience and manage competition.

Sports programmes can be developed in partnership with clubs and other community groups and may involve interschool and club competitions.

Learners require a range of structured, sequenced, and developmentally appropriate learning opportunities in sport. These include opportunities to develop:

• skills for participating in diverse sporting roles such as playing or coaching

• constructive attitudes, values, and behaviours that will help them to manage co-operative and competitive sports environments

• skills for identifying and critiquing the contributions that science, technology, and the environment make to sporting performances

• the skills to identify and discuss the social and cultural significance that sport has for individuals and for society, for example, in relation to attitudes, values, specific practices and their effects, and media influences.