Māori and Our Values

Each of our school values has a Māori phrase that encapsulates the essence of the value. To encourage the use of these and the inclusion throughout the school, I added the relevant poster to each of our weekly values slides. 

I think it's an absolute waste of time and space if we don't keep our Māori kupu alive. Why bother having them there if nobody does anything with it. Tokenism at its best...but not for long.

I created the posters last year to try to encourage teachers to learn them and be able to share this learning with our tamariki.  This worked really well in our senior hub, Te Ara Angitu. Students were able to say what they were and what each part meant. The goal now is to have staff and students in all hubs using these kupu regularly and naturally. I'm looking forward to that.

Mihi Whakatau 2024

For the first time since being at Ara Tū Whakatā Gilberthorpe School, we added mihi whakatau to our school cultural responsive practice. My role in this was to support staff in knowing what would be taking place and what each part of the process was done for. I talked through what our whaikorero boys would or could say. 

I approached one whānau to see if they would like to be involved with some of the main roles, however they were unable so we have made a bit of a plan to get some support in learning how to do the karanga and whaikōrero. For this I am hoping to get some support to have a workshop or some kind. 

Another teacher and I performed the kaikaranga roles for this mihi whakatau and it would be awesome to build on this.

My next step: To support staff to become competent and confident in running mihi whakatau as an embedded and natural practice.