Yesterday and today our Māori teachers and students are at the Ngā Manu Kōrero speech competitions being held at the University of Canterbury.

There is wide participation at the event from secondary schools and kura kaupapa across the region and the event involves impromptu and prepared speeches in Te Reo and English. The standard of oratory is extremely high, at length and from memory. Speakers are supported by their schools who sit on the stage with them and it was a real privilege to be able to sit with our students and staff at the last event. Our speakers at the event are Aromea Lee-Reiri, Stella Crossan (junior) and Elise Walker (senior). Best wishes to Whāea Adrienne Huia and Whāea Grace Schraeder-Manuera and students for both days.

It is worth noting the significant growth in Te Reo uptake at the school. It is now our 2nd biggest language subject and really flourishing and that has enabled us to employ our second full time Te Reo teacher. For our Māori students, provision of the language teaching is an essential part of embracing language, culture and identity and for many of our other students who are choosing to take the language they and their parents understand the huge benefit of knowledge of Māori language and tikanga in a maturing bi-cultural Aotearoa New Zealand. There are few corporate, government and NGO leaders today who are able to operate without some familiarity and competency in tikanga and Te Reo and the recent Matariki national holiday saw a new resurgence in interest in Te Ao Māori across the country.

Our Social Sciences faculty are deeply immersed in developing the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum for our junior school. The National Māori Services Team at Tūranga have been absolutely fantastic sharing knowledge and resources and staff and students have been undertaking taonga hunts and walks through the city discovering places of importance they did not know existed. This generation is going to grow up with a deeper understanding of our own history in this country and of the significance and meaning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi – and that’s a good thing for our nation.

Ngā mihi

Christine O’Neill