Cust School are actively exploring our cultural connectedness through celebrating Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, singing waiata, learning kupu o te Ra, and sharing artworks.

Cultural Connectedness is an area that Cust School are focusing on as we reflect on who we are as a community and the cultural landscape that our tamariki bring to our kura.

This year, our junior school teachers have been encouraging children to begin oral language 'news' sessions with a short pepeha. This serves to add value to the student's voice, and also provides a framework to build upon as the children learn and present formal mihi in the middle and senior school. Pepeha were also used at the start of the Y0-1 students' speeches.

Karakia and waiata are also used in the junior and middle syndicate to settle students at the beginning of the day.

In the senior school, mihi have been explored both formally and informally, in the contect of artworks and oral language. We have explored painting our maunga using acrylic paint blending techniques, and used chalk pastels to create visual pepeha. We have also used Scratch to retell Maori legends digitally.

A small group of senior students are currently exploring our community values by creating a video series called 'Local Legends'. They have interviewed a number of local identities nominated through social media that best represent our district's values. These episodes are being edited as we speak, and we look forward to further analysing what and who our community values, and what that may say about us.