Wow! What can I say.
Thank you so much for your generosity with kai (food) for the shared lunch. Richard the Dunstan High School teacher could not believe his eyes, as his worry had been that traditionally the host (his class) provides this as part of the powhiri. His students laid the tables before we started the formal part of the welcome and it looked wonderful to come in to.
Thank you so much to everyone who came with us to take part in the learning, and especially Mrs Eastwood, Mrs Fonseca and Mrs Donaldson who transported the food and gear.
It was equally wonderful that Mrs Maria O'Neill could be there with us as Hayvin's Grandma, but also as the senior member of our school's Maori Community. I really appreciate this support and involvement as we try to provide authentic learning experiences, and our Maori community are the people with those skills.
We must also thank Ms Tamati who has helped us with our kapahaka and has advised on protocol. Due to other teaching commitments she was unable to attend with us. Thank you Ann for stepping in to those shoes and guiding us through the experience.
All in all it was an exciting learning experience for us all. This learning, is part of the school's Maori plan, and will happen every even year for the junior school. On Friday I learned that the wharenui was fully equipped with mattresses and a super kitchen and toilet facilities, so perhaps we could think about sleeping there for the overnight camp. Food for thought. Next year we review our camps - this would be the time for parents to suggest this if you felt it would be worthwhile.
Great job to all the children who stepped up today to leadership roles. We are all very proud of you, particularly to Bobbie and Thomas Patrick who stepped up this morning to speak, so that we could sing all 3 of our songs. Something that I didn't know until this morning was that someone speaks then there is a song, so we couldn't do our 3 songs one after another, and we could only have boys speak.
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