Kia ora Parents and Whanau
It has certainly been a very positive month since coming back from our last lockdown. Students were again engaged in face to face learning and genuinely enjoying being back at school. Over the last terms they have certainly shown a genuine understanding and embraced Northcross’s Learning Dispositions; resilience, perseverance, self-motivation, being engaged and exploring new ways of learning, these have all been wonderfully demonstrated throughout the levels of Covid.
Thank you so much for your ongoing support as parents, working with your child and our teachers, ensuring learning was happening at home, it certainly has been a genuine community effort ensuring the wellbeing of our students.
An acknowledgment of the Northcross staff for their ability to adjust to a new norm, ensuring their learning programmes were able to continue through such unpredictable times. Their professionalism and ability to adapt has been quite phenomenal. Thank you for everything you have done.
Hutia te rito ō te harakeke
Kei hea te komako, e ko?
Ka rere ki uta, ka rere ki tai
Kī mai ki ahau, he aha te mea nui ō te ao?
Māku e kī atu ki a koe,
He tāngata! He tāngata! He tāngata!
If you pluck out the centre of the flax bush (the centre are the precious young, the future generation- a metaphor to how whanau is in te ao Māori)
Where will the bell bird sing?
It will fly inland, it will fly seawards (a statement that it’s disorientated)
If you ask me what is the most important thing in the world?
I will reply,
It is people! It is people! It is people!
He aha te mea nui ō te ao? What is the most important thing in the world?
He tāngata! He tāngata! He tāngata!
It is people! It is people! It is people!
This metaphor is so appropriate and highlights the wonderful metaphoric verse promoted through Te Reo and certainly very timely as we recently acknowledged “Te wiki ō te reo Māori”, Maori Language Week. Students were involved in daily competitions, daily notices and classroom activities with Waiata’s being broadcast throughout the school daily (Thanks to Pepa Lee, Lani Tereroa and Lyricc Rameka) . One initiative promoted by the Te Taura Whiri- The Māori Language Commission was, Be 1 in a Million ( promoting over 1 million people speaking Te Reo throughout the week) which was reached with the help of our Northcross students. It is hard to believe that historically Te Reo Māori was once banned in schools.
In the 1970s a group of young Māori university students; Nga Tamatoa (young Māori warriors), Victory University’s Te Reo Māori Society and Te Huinga Rangatahi (the New Zealand Māori Student’s Association) decided to champion the cause and took to revitalising Te Reo Māori. They petitioned Parliament wanting to promote the language. Māori Language Day, was the result of this petition with Māori Language week was formally introduced in 1975. From this grew bilingual schools, Rūma Rumaki- total immersion units, Kohanga Reo (language nest- early childhood education in immersion Te Reo Māori), Kura Kaupapa- total immersion schools). Presently, Te Reo Māori is taught at Northcross Intermediate; an acknowledgement of Whaea Keri for her championing of the cause and assisting in the teaching of Te Reo within our school.
On reflection, as a society we have come a long way, but we can’t become complacent – there is still much work to be done around promoting Te Reo.
Congratulations to our Academy of the Arts Class who took out first place in the Auckland Showquest. This is quite an accomplishment considering the ever changing nature of our performing environment. An enormous amount of work and effort went into not only producing the show but then recording it for submission to the Showquest organisers. For more information on their success have a read of the article in this issue: Showquest Success.
As we head into these school holidays, we wish you a relaxing time with family and friends. We look forward to a term 4 packed with learning, activities and hopefully lots more sport.
Nga Mihi
Jonathon Tredray
Principal
