“Ko Maihiihi, Ko Au - Ko Au, Ko Maihiihi

Maihiihi is Me - I am Maihiihi”

This is our very own whakatauki to describe our inquiry journey at school this year. Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledges, values and celebrates identity and this is what will form the basis of our inquiry learning this year. How exciting!

Term 1 Week 9 Mihi Aroha to all our Maihiihi School families and community

Now that formal testing is all done and dusted we can get on with the business of teaching, learning, and achieving! I hope that the recent parent-teacher interviews via telephone were informative and now that we know where each student is currently achieving academically, collaboratively we can plan the next steps in their learning pathways.

We are starting to research our own origins in the form of Pepeha and Mihimihi. Our mission this year is to research our identity as individuals and our identity as a school. This means finding out where we are, who we are, what we are and what makes us special here in Maihiihi. Keep an eye out on some of the GEMS I am sure we will uncover as we go along on this journey.

To support us in our learning we are hoping to call on experts in local history representing a bi-cultural perspective of our whenua (land) and the purakau (stories) and korero (talk) behind it. Part of this journey is also gathering information from you, our families, in the form of our Local Curriculum Consultation form which was shared online. Thank you to those families who have taken the time to fill this in. I will share the results of this with you in the next edition of this newsletter.

Our school Triathlon was a massive success! Finally something that Covid didn’t take away from us! It was good to see our families starting to return to school to encourage and motivate OUR children in these events. Let’s hope there are many more opportunities to come.

To end on a positive note, we have managed to secure Lotteries Commission Community funding to build a Community Flying Fox AND a Sensory Garden here at school. Both projects have got our students excited and we are looking forward to planning and building both of these projects here at school WITH YOUR SUPPORT. Be sure to talk to your child about these and also keep an eye out for notices later on next term.

As always, my door (or phone or email) is open if you have any feedback/feedforward you would like to give to make our school the best place it can be for your / our children.

Paimarire koutou,

Vanessa Koroa