Creatives in Schools Project 2022

This year I collaborated with Harko Brown in leading our Creatives in Schools project; the aim of the project is below:

Our learners painted tupoko and learned new protocols associated with our school values through honga. They weaved kites through a tuakana teina approach and were involved in designing pou and painting it to represent our kura.

 

Upon completion of the project we reported back to the Creatives in Schools team and here is a short part of it:

Full report 

The outcomes for our ākonga from this project were vast and include: Developing confidence, cooperation and communication skills

The aro-takaro (implements of play) were all cooperative games that involved working together to achieve a common goal. The tupoko (the ti-kouka ‘standing holes) that our ākonga painted as part of our first few sessions were used for many games and skill development. The game of honga requires balancing the tupoko between two people’s foreheads and moving from the ground to standing. This requires a lot of cooperation and communication skills. Many other games with the tupoko required working together with balancing. This helped our tamariki build stronger whanaungatanga with each other and their kaiako. We saw ākonga develop their confidence in sharing, giving things a go and trying their best throughout the project. 

Tuakana-teina During the weaving of kites the students worked in small groups of tuakana-teina from Year 0 - Year 6. This was a great opportunity for our tukana to be experts and teach teina skills they had obtained. 

Links to many areas of current learning in our local curriculum We linked our Creative’s project through literacy and our inquiry, along with links through Mathematics through aro-takaro. As part of literacy our kura uses Storychat for our shared reading approach - we pick a text to read for shared reading over 1-2weeks and create a range of tasks linked to the text and other areas of learning. We linked our texts into our creative’s project with Harko’s support and thus embedded the programme further into our kura. Our term 2 inquiry was based around flight during Matariki and this linked strongly with the kites and gliders that we created with Harko.

Mathematics - shapes and patterns throughout the project - creating shapes using tupoko games. 

 Our inquiry in term 3 is based around sustainability; one student linked this to our Creatives project with a poignant comment to Harko along the lines of - “It’s so good we are using wooden posts for our pou because that’s more sustainable than using metal or steel as it comes from papatuanuku.” 

Strong links to our school’s pb4l approach We have linked colours to our current school values and motto thus far - red for whakamana, blue for manaakitanga, green for kaitiakitanga. Originally we planned to have 7 colours but thought this may be overwhelming, we may add more colours and values over time. These colours are represented by feathers that are placed in the student's tupoko. Tupoko are stacked to create taku huatau (feather topped toktoka columns) that ākonga linked to their value goals. This is something we want to continue developing over time but it was incredibly powerful for our ākonga to share their tupoko with their whānau during our Talanoa. 

A sense of pride and accomplishment Our ākonga are enormously proud of all of the art pieces they created. It was heartwarming to see our ākonga share their tupoko and related value goals with their whānau at our Talanoa. The manu wahine kites they created were utilised as gliders and now are adorned in our classes. The manu wahine and manu taratahi and how they were made was shared at our Matariki celebration with Harko sharing our journey thus far. I had a student bring his whānau to me on this day to get a photo with myself and Harko and the kites he had helped create. The pou/hupara that have been painted with a small group of students are really proud of how fabulous their work has turned out. Although they are not yet complete, they are looking great and will be completed next term. 

Art skills - drawing, painting and weaving Our ākonga had the opportunity to express themselves through their painting of tupoko and develop painting skills. The pou design group expressed their cultural links through art design linking patterns from their cultures into a design. All ākonga had the opportunity to learn weaving skills as well. 

Outcomes for kaiako:

Kaiako were involved during the sessions with our creative and ākonga and were able to learn from these experiences to deliver follow up lessons. All kaiako and wider staff agreed that their knowledge of mātauranga Māori was greatly enhanced through working alongside Harko. As one of the teaching standards states, our kura, kaiako and wider staff have a commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership. The creatives project gave us all the opportunity to gain new knowledge in how we can further embed mātauranga Māori throughout our local curriculum. Our kaiako were bursting with excitement and new ideas after spending sessions with Harko and our learners and that is not an exaggeration. Recently, we had a staff meeting around feedback on design for our new Mara hupara that is being installed in our kura in consultation with Harko. There were so many links and connections made there that confirmed the profound positive impact that the creatives project has had on our kura. An example of this is an aro-takaro implement Harko used with our learners, tama taiki, is going to be a permanent fixture in our mara hupara. We also had learners make their own poi toa and these will also be another arko-takaro as part of our mara hupara.