Hero photograph
Marae visit
 
Photo by Shelley Wyatt

Kapa Haka, Cultural Festival and marae visit

Carolyn Sutherland —

West Melton kapa haka have been asked to perform at the official opening of the new West Melton Community Centre - what an amazing opportunity!

Kia ora koutou

It is so nice to have our group recognised by the local community. The performance will be straight after school on Friday 7 December - information will be sent home soon with a form for you to indicate whether your child will be able to attend.

Back at the start of the year, we set three targets to work to further acknowledge and celebrate New Zealand’s bicultural identity within our school:

  1. Strengthening teacher’s professional knowledge of Tikanga-a-Iwi

  2. Embedding te reo me ōna tikanga Māori in teaching and learning and the wider school culture

     3. Enhancing our learning environments through the display of materials that reflect the cultural diversity of Aotearoa

Reflecting back on the year highlights how far we have progressed towards reaching our goals. Many of our learners and teachers have researched and presented their pepeha, and some have visited our local marae at Taumutu to learn more about the history and tikanga of our area. Our staff have also had the opportunity to visit the marae for professional learning.

There has been a focus on deliberate inclusion of diverse cultural perspectives, particularly around our nationally recognised language weeks. Māori language particularly has been at the forefront during Matariki, Cultural Festival, and Te Wiki O te reo Māori - the national coverage of our Kiwi bicultural identity grows every year and it is awesome to see so many of our West Melton kids engaging, learning more, and getting involved with these events.

We have been very lucky in having creative expertise to draw from this year in kapa haka, resulting in our own West Melton waiata and haka being composed collaboratively by our learners and tutors. There are also large scale outdoor artworks in the pipeline that have been designed by our learners and presented to the Board of Trustees for consideration. Keep an eye out for them being mounted for display next year!

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to these treasures that represent our school ~ Me te mihi nui mō ā koutou whakapakari ora.