Engaged and motivated writers. We have had real purpose to our writing recently. 

Much of our recent learning in the Yr 7/8 Hub has seen us focussed on learning all about the South West Zone Cultural Narrative. This important document is being extensively used to inform and guide the upcoming redesign/ rebuild at Oaklands School. 

We wondered if other schools were influenced by similar documents. We took the opportunity to write formal letters to other schools to get an answer to this wondering. Each student has written a letter to a school ( lots of learning about proper letter writing happened first though);  asking a number of four key questions. We have started to get replies which has created a real buzz in the Yr 7/8 hub. 

See Warisha's letter and also the reply that she received below.

 30th August 2017

Oaklands School 37 Cunningham Pl, Halswell Christchurch 8025.

Beckenham School71 Sandwich Road Beckenham,BeckenhamChristchurch 8023

Dear Ms Hastings

I am a year 8 student, from Oaklands school.This letter letter has two purposes.Firstly, we are learning to write a ( formal ) letter, which will help me in my learning. Secondly, we are learning about the cultural narrative. I would like to find out some information so that I can use this information to help me with my learning at school.

Recently, at school we have been learning about the south west cultural narrative; we have mainly been looking at how to use/apply this at school. Currently, at school we are going through the design process as we are rebuilding our school. We are going to be using the cultural narrative to help re-design our school.

Here are a few questions related to the cultural narrative I would like to ask you and [ hope ] you will answer:Does your school have a cultural narrative?Are your students and community aware of this document?Have you used the cultural narrative/or are you going to?If so how have you used this?

Thanks Ms Hastings.I hope you take your time to read this and reply back. Your answers will be very appreciated since it will help my learning.

Your's sincerely,

Warisha Khan Oaklands school.

Kia ora WarishaThank you for your well-written email. I hope that your teacher is impressed with the quality of your formal letter-writing skills!I'll do my best to answer your questions by putting my answers under each question, in blue.Does your school have a cultural narrative?Our school has a cultural narrative that we share with about 10 other local schools. It was written for us by researchers from Ngai Tahu about two years ago. At that time our school was well underway with our rebuild and design process but we passed the narrative on to our architect so that they could consider the narrative in the final stages of the design. I don't think that very much from the narrative was actually used by the architects, as their design was pretty much complete at that stage.
Are your students and community aware of this document?
They may not be very aware of it now, but
Have you used the cultural narrative/or are you going to?At the time the narrative was published, we were in the process of rethinking our values and vision and we talked quite a lot about our narrative and used some of the information in it to help with our vision and values review, and the redesign of our school logo.

If so how have you used this?
Our new school logo (below) symbolises water and earth, and the shape can remind you of a pool of water (in the centre) and the shape is the curve of the Heathcote (Ōpāwaho) River as it curves around the Beckenham Loop.

The pool at the centre represents our Beckenham ponds which are right next to our school. These ponds are the last remaining natural springs in the area. Before European times, the area around Beckenham was full of natural springs and these were a place of 'mahinga kai' like a watering hole or a place where people whould stop on their travels to gather and trade food. The idea of a food basket, that we are filling for a journey, is represented in our school vision, "Whakarite ngā kete mō te haerenga! (Filling our kete for the journey). We see our school as a place where everyone there is helping to fill the foodbaskets of others, so that we can each continue on our life's journey. We have chosen kete to hold each of our 5 values.

​I hope that this is helpful for your research!
All the very best for your learning, and for your school's inquiry into ways of using your cultural narrative to shape your school's future.​
Ngā mihi nui
Sandy Hastings
Principal ~ Tumuaki
Beckenham School