Kia ora e te whānau,

It has been a short week here as we roll into a long weekend and another short week! This term is flying by!

For those that celebrate Easter - ngā mihi o Te Aranga, happy Easter! We hope you enjoy doing something special with your whānau to mark this time of year.

Among our 330 learners, we have 24 different countries of birth and 22 different languages spoken at home. This creates a beautiful, rich, diversity that we want to celebrate here at Te Kura Whakatipu o Kawarau. We believe it’s a huge part of what makes this place so special.

We aim to have a place where:

All learners see their cultures valued and celebrated within our kura.

We know this is an area that we are developing and one that we would love your input, passion and involvement. This year there will be many opportunities for you to share your thoughts and to help us out.

During Week 1 next term, we will put some intentional energy towards this. It will be our second annual ‘Cultural Celebrations Week’ and we would love your help.

There are two articles in this newsletter about how you can do this. One is an invitation to our first ‘Family Hui (meeting) and Dinner’. We would love to see as many parents there as possible.

The other is an invitation to be part of the learning taking place during our celebration week. Teachers would love to welcome you into their classes to share information about culture with the learners. There are ideas in the article but we hope you will have more. Included in this section, is an appeal for help to lead and/or set up our International Food Court on Friday the 3rd of May to celebrate the culmination of our special week.

For us to reach our goals of meaningfully celebrating diversity and culture all year round we need your support! Even if you’re not sure how to help, but you want to be involved, we would love to hear from you!

There’s a great Māori whakataukī (proverb) - “He waka eke noa”. It means that we are all in this waka (canoe/vehicle) together. For us to reach our goals, meaningfully, we need your support to set the direction of our waka, and keep us moving towards creating a great place for our young people and our whole community.

Have a wonderful long weekend everyone. Stay safe, and if the sun doesn’t join us too much - stay warm.

Ngā mihi nui,

Lara Kirk