CULTURAL

Recently, we held a noho marae at the college for our students from our senior Māori classes. The purpose of this noho was to return to the traditional way of teaching and learning for Māori which enabled us to offer the students an opportunity to be learning and using te reo Māori for a more prolonged period of time than a one-hour class allows. It was also an awesome opportunity to be using the wharenui and developing the whanaungatanga of the senior Māori class (Years 10-13).

We were fortunate to have Whaea Kaz join us and run a language workshop as well as Matua Bentham and Whaea Kate take us through a workshop on indigenous leadership and identifying our medicine (our reasons for learning te reo).

Deputy Principal Sally Hart says it was a really inspiring experience.

“I found it very interesting listening to Matua Bentham and Whaea Kate's kōrero about indigenous leadership. These kōrero empowered the tauira to see more about themselves and identify the values they hold from their own whānau.

“The power of the wananga was the intensive time the students had available to them to be immersed in the reo, and the manaakitanga and whanaungatanga they showed each other."

The students also said they found the experience enriching.

"It was a new experience for us as tauira as this is the first time we’ve held a noho in our own space.

“We were exposed to teachings from some knowledgeable and experienced people to help us improve our mental fortitude and expand on existing reo, tikanga, thoughts and opinions. The noho also encouraged us to self-reflect and set personal goals to pursue."