Duration: 1:46
Newmarket School teacher, Reubina Irshad talks about how they connected with whānau during their Matariki celebrations. Māori whānau were invited into the classroom and taught students about Matariki and how Matariki is celebrated. The class created an e-book explaining how Newmarket School celebrate Matariki.
Reubina Irshad: Part of our values at school is whanaungatanga which is making connections with our families and so during the year, we were holding some Matariki celebrations at school and I, as a classroom teacher, thought what better opportunity to bring in our whānau to help celebrate Matariki and make connections that way. So I invited my Māori parents to come in who were very willing and very supportive and basically talked and taught us all about Matariki and how Matariki is celebrated. The idea for the e-Book was year after year, as a classroom teacher, I’m always looking for resources when it comes to celebrating Matariki and I thought it was about time that I actually made a book myself and so I decided to look at what we did at Newmarket school and how we celebrated Matariki.
Student 1: We got our writing modelling book out and then we did a plan and we wrote down from the plan and then we drew our pictures. Then after that, we scanned it onto an application called Paint on the computer and then once we had the book we sold it and many parents bought the book and then the school bought a whole bunch of books and then they took them overseas and shared them with other schools.
Reubina Irshad: We got it translated into Mandarin so that our community could access the story and be more aware of what Matariki’s all about.