Te wiki o te reo maori was celebrated at Raroa by encouraging students and teachers to embrace the theme of "Akina te Reo" which means "To Give Te Reo a Go".

Te reo maori is an important part of Raroa and classrooms were actively involved in the week by using te reo in their everyday programmes. Simple things like using greetings, writing the date and making an effort to pronounce te reo words correctly were easy ways to use te reo. It was great to see many classrooms exploring te reo through myths and legends, art work, waiata and mau rakau. I was impressed to see a group of team 5 boys learn haka and put together a short set of rakau moves during some afternoon sessions organised by Mr Matt Tilley.

Maori language week 2016 was a positive, relevant and fun experience for students at Raroa. It showed that there is a place for maori language in our classrooms. It's great to see this happening and I look forward to seeing more this year. Here is a link for the mau rakau display.Mr Ben Bowkett