2 December2022

We applied in 2021 - No, sorry!

We persevered, tightened up the application and tried again in 2022...... Yes!

This lesson in GRIT, yours in particular, thank you, John, has meant that we are a successful recipient of the Creatives in Schools grant. (The Creatives in Schools programme is delivered by the Ministry of Education in partnership with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatū Taonga and Creative New Zealand.)

Working with our creative Kimi Moana Whiting (also a past pupil of Worser Bay School), we have been provided with funding to make something, we have been dreaming about for years but never having the funding available to actually do, finally happen. We, as tangata tiaki, can 'mark the spot' in the way it needs to be recognised for the special place it is.

The application was originally many pages of poetic writing that then needed to be edited down to a few succinct pages with discrete sections under a particular number of words. For some of us, this is a mammoth challenge!

I'll share the intro piece here to give you an idea of what the project is about:

Worser Bay Whetūkairangi School Pou: From the Sea to the Forest; to the Stars and Beyond

This project aims to combine the New Zealand Histories Curriculum and learning in Te Ao Māori with The Arts Curriculum to produce Pou, marking the school site as a significant Wahi Tupuna, the first established Pā site of Ngai Tara in Te Whanganui a Tara/Wellington.

Our Year 5-6 students will be involved for the duration of the project, creating the Pou, representing key ideas around our connection to the past and to the Whenua. We see this project as our opportunity for the community to honour the kōrero tuku iho that sits in this ancestral landscape and to celebrate the mana of Tangata Whenua. It will be a visual representation and synthesis of our new local curriculum.

While the project will be led by our creative partner, Kimi Moana Whiting (Whānau a Apanui), children and the community and their creativity will sit at its centre.

For the project, ākonga will:

• research and learn the stories of the past which have shaped our community

• collaborate with others in the school, whānau and wider community, including Kimi Moana Whiting, to develop ideas

• develop understanding of concepts in Te Ao Māori

• deepen understanding of Te Reo including vocabulary to express key ideas

• develop ideas around how the natural world influences how we live

• develop design skills using artist models including Kimi Moana Whiting, Arnold Manaaki and Richard Killeen

• design silhouette figures to communicate key ideas

• create a significant enduring symbol for our kura, community and city.

So, you will be invited to be part of this and, linked to this work, we will be bringing back the idea of the family hikoi around and about the surrounding hills to learn more about the history and stories. Families who came on the last one, which to memory was a couple of years ago now (pandemic fuzz), absolutely loved it - so we are bringing it back!

Next week will be the last full Newsletter for 2022 and will contain a whole pile of dates to diary for kickstarting the new year!