Our students have a desire to support and lead others in a way that encompasses our special character and core values.

Building whanaungatanga within our student body is such an important part of their journey. A focus for us, especially in our new building as a 1-13 school, is to help students to feel supported by their peers and senior students in order to flourish.

We had our first group workshop recently with an excited group of senior students who want to help design and shape what peer support and mentoring might look like at Ao Tawhiti. The students were receptive to engaging in a variety of activities that helped them connect with each other and start to build relationships as a support group. The group devised wonderful ideas and had meaningful conversations around how we should integrate the Peer Support NZ programme with our Core Values. It was such a delight to see students so engaged and excited about the possibilities around leadership and designing a programme for our students. So many awesome ideas and potential!

Our next step is to run a full day workshop with our interested students early next year to consolidate their ideas and integrate into our year plan. We are grateful for the enthusiasm and energy our students are bringing to this new initiative.