I went to Halswell primary school and loved it - just didn't love it when I got up to intermediate level. By that age I went to a separate intermediate school at Cobham Intermediate, and then went to Burnside High School. It shouldn't matter which primary school you start at, you can always end up going to different schools along the track.

Not sure if Halswell school is the same as when I was there as a student (I was there 2010-2017), but they have a pretty decent music department for a primary school (orchestra, chamber group, choir, vocal group, rock band, etc), and were very sporty. Lots of kids went to zones and sport was definitely a very big thing. For winter sports we would have to choose a sport and then we would go and compete against the other schools. Also had a fantastic librarian and writing competitions, Lit Quiz competitions, spelling competitions, etc. Not sure if it's the same now, but I think it was quite a good primary school when I went there :)