Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnership 2018

Demonstrate commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Tiriti o Waitangi partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Reflection: Te wiki o te reo Māori

The English faculty organised a lunchtime event for te wiki o te reo Māori which involved a poetry treasure hunt where we cut up pieces of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 an both English and Te Reo Māori and set up different stations around the school with clues. Students had to find all the pieces and organise both versions of the poem in the correct order. All faculty staff were involved in setting up the activity and working with students at a station to check the order and correct translation of the sonnet.

SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

ORIORI 18
Me he rangi ka paruhi i te waru to rite?
Me te rearea koe te ngakau mowai.
He hau tukipoho ka rui i te mata o te tau,
Kotia iho ko te hikuwai o te tau.
Kua paka noa a Tama tuhoehoe ki runga,
He kirikowhai ka kirikotea, ka porehu,
Rerehu ana te rerehua o te piwari,
Heipu noa, kua tohua ranei e te wa;
Ko te arawheu i a koe te nunumi,
Te purotu i a koe te riro ke
E kore a Mate e tamarahi he kaewa tau i te po
Kua herea nei koe e nga here o te kupu, ake, ake.
E ha tonu te waha, e kite tonu te karu,
Ka ora tonu tenei, e mauri ora ai koe.

The PE Faculty also got involved in te wiki o te reo Māori. We had a challenge to use 3 of our kupu keyring words each lesson, to use a Māori warm up (I used whanowhano and pukana), and to play a traditional Māori game (I did ki-o-rahi - lucky for me I had some experts in my class who were great at teaching me more about the game and refereeing!). 

Reflection: Tikanga and pronunciation

This year I was involved in a number of powhiri, welcomed onto marae, attended tangi, learnt karakia and learnt the actions to the school waiata. Having grown up in Rotorua I felt that I had some understanding of tikanga, but through my experiences as part of the RGHS staff this year I feel a lot more confident and knowledgeable when it comes to tikanga and being fully involved in these different events. 

I have also been focussing on getting more confidence with my pronunciation of te reo Māori words. To do this I have been working with a few students who I teach who are fluent in te reo. One particular student who I teach for English finds english quite a challenging subject and lacks confidence, so I have made a deal with her that she teaches me a new word or sentence each lesson in te reo and we will practice together then she will put in 100% for her English work. So far she has been an awesome teacher for me and this daily activity has built a relationship which has in turn increased her confidence and engagement in my class.