With Māori Language week recently celebrated during the second week of September here is some news relating to Māori language and culture at Columba College.

On Monday this week, the Kapa Haka students visited Yvette Williams Retirement Village to share the waiata we have been learning. The residents enjoyed all of our songs, especially “Pōkarekare Ana” which was a familiar song for many of them. Our pupils really enjoyed the opportunity to perform for an audience, and we hope to make this a regular occurence. 

On Tuesday, the current rotation of Year 9 students taking Māori participated in a morning of Māori culture with our guest tutor Amber Bridgman. We all shared our mihimihi/personal greeting and a waiata with Whaea Amber before enjoying kai together. After that Amber spoke to us about cultural practises relating to Marae visits and flax weaving, and we all made putiputi/flax flowers. We were all very grateful for this wonderful opportunity.