The Te Whare Tapa Wha model of wellbeing has been a focus within our classroom. It has helped us to build strategies for wellbeing within our lives at school and at home.

The Whare Tapa Whā is a model of health that helps us to identify where we need extra support. It describes health as a wharenui or meeting house with four walls. These represent taha wairua (spirituality), taha hinengaro (mental health), taha tinana (physical health) and taha whānau (social relationships). Connection with the whenua (land) forms the foundation. 

We used this model to help us identify different things we can do to nurture and strengthen these walls and keep ourselves well. For part of our daily wellbeing check in we wrote down on a post-it note one thing we had done to strengthen our whare. We thought about the area of the whare it related to the most and stuck our post-it on the class whare. Each time we added a new note we stuck the old one in our books to build up a list of strategies/ideas for each of the 5 areas. We think we have done a great job and enjoyed writing and illustrating some of our best ideas.

Student voice: 

Ryan: It was cool to find out what others do to look after their wellbeing

Faith: I liked writing down the things I like to do, and drawing myself in my Whare Tapa Wha.

Romy: It makes me feel good to be nice and helpful.

Kye: It was fun to write down my ideas on the sheet. 

Mya: I enjoyed drawing the things that I like in my Whare. 

Kortez: It was fun to work out what part of the house to put the sticky note on.