Last term all the Year 8 students at He Tīwai Mātauranga were privileged to attend the Rehua Marae

Walking into Rehua Marae, we got started off with our pōwhiri. One of the wahine at Rehua Marae and Whaea Chrissy started the powhiri with a Karanga which was them calling to welcome us in.

After the Karanga was completed we all walked up to the Marae and took our shoes off by the entrance on our right side, as one of our tikanga/protocols. The kaumātua at Rehua Marae introduced themselves with their mihi and gave us a whaikōrero about their history and the history of Rehua Marae. Their rōpū sang a stunning waiata and then we sang Aoraki to them in honour and respect.

We then moved into the whare kai, spoke our karakia and then ate our kai from our pēke. We were all having such a fun time learning all the protocols.

We finished our kai and went back into the wharenui to learn about the area around us and about the people before us that were a part of Rehua Marae. We learnt about the area and about all the carvings.

We were taught about how different iwi had different styles of art in Rehua Marae and then we used this knowledge to create a piece of art from the carvings.

We finished our artwork and gave a huge thank you to the Rehua Marae kaumātua. We went away knowing we had learnt so much about the marae: its history, the tikanga and the meaning behind the carvings.

Thank you to Whaea Chrissy and our kaiako for taking us.

Tayla & Mya, Room 20