Featuring our awesome tamariki performing at the Opuke Cultural Festival 2023

When I first came to Mayfield, I was told that our school Kapa Haka group would be performing at two seperate festivals (Hakatere and Opuke). People told me that our school needed new kapa haka uniforms and after looking at what we already had, I had to agree. I hear there are some who are wanting to know where/how we managed to get our kapa haka uniform, so here it is....

After a lot of research I found some amazing uniforms but they were very costly. Our Home and School group declined supporting the purchase of these so we put on our yellow thinking hats (De Bono's problem solving hat) and used $1000 from the Te Reo Maori budget to buy plain black clothes from Kmart. Maryn found braid with a Maori design at Spotlight and together, she and Alison sewed head bands and belts. We bought feathers and plastic taonga from the $2 Shop and were able to give our tamariki the mana and support they deserve. They were able to go on stage, heads held high because they looked just as good as any other group out there!

Some of you may be asking - why did I ask for money from Home and School if we already had $1000 sitting there. Well, this is why - every curriculum area has a budget. Some budgets have a whole lot more than others and in this case, our Te Reo budget had $1000. Now, with this money we would usually use it to pay for the entry fees to these festivals, it would pay for subscriptions to websites that we can use in the classroom, it pays for teacher resources, and for other materials such as poi, rakau, and music that we use for our Te Reo programme. Instead, we used this money for our kapa haka uniforms and now we have no more left to go towards the other resources we would have normally purchased. 

We are very proud of the collective effort our team put into thinking outside the box in creating our kapa haka uniform on a shoe string budget! We have it now and will continue to add to it over the next few years. I hope this clears up any queries that people may have.

We are very grateful to the Charitable Trust for supporting us by funding Whaea Nerina to come to our school to teach Te Reo and Kapa Haka one day a week this year. 

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou.