Month: August 2025

Tēnā koutou katoa, (Hello Everyone) This morning we were delighted to host four kaiako (teachers) from Russell St School for a visit. Some of you might remember that is the school that I used to work at prior to joining the team here at Turitea, so it was nice for some of my old colleagues to make the trip to see all the amazing things we have going on up here. Garden to Table continued this morning with Mataī and Pōhutukawa filling Tāne Mahuta (The Hall) with great smells. I was invited along to enjoy the vegetable fritters on offer....

Tēnā koutou katoa, (Hello Everyone) This week we embraced Te Wiki o te Pangarau (Maths Week) as you can see above. Each day different teachers read a maths-based story or taught a maths game with every class after lunch. We also had daily estimation challenges across the kura. Estimation might just seem like ‘making a guess’ but teaching our tamariki to make educated guesses promotes their number sense, problem-solving skills, ability to reason and justify their thinking.  Monday was How many paper clips in the container? Tuesday was How many steps will it take Troy to walk from the front...

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou, (Warmest of greetings to you all) Production ticket orders went live today (see the previous Hero post or click here to order) and we can’t wait for this one to take shape. The theme this year is a good old-fashioned ‘Tiki-Tour’ around our country, learning a bit about each place we travel to, with each class having a different town/city to tell the story of Ayla and Mackenzie have submitted their entry for the Design The Programme Cover competition, which you can see below. It is on Friday 12th September at the Speirs Centre...

Kia ora e te whānau, (Hello everyone) Today, Tāne Mahuta played host to the Cluster Speech Competition, hearing well-crafted speeches from Year 5-8 ākonga (students) from Aokautere, Linton Camp, Ōpiki and Tokomaru schools. The quality of the speakers was very high and we were incredibly proud of Kyerin and Elisa who represented our kura with the delivery and execution of their speech. Whakamihi nui ki a koutou (Congratulations) to Ryzel from Ōpiki who won the Year 5/6, James from Aokautere who came second and Elisa who came third. Harriet from Ōpiki won the Year 7/8 competition with Kiara from Linton Camp coming second and Rhylee from Ōpiki in third place. Last week, Dani held...