Rongoa Garden

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Our journey began in 2020 with a group of parents and staff who met voluntarily to plan our Rongoa.

Student voice was gathered and included in the plan. Staff attended Rongoa Garden courses to learn about the significance of Rongoa (well being).

Our Kaumatua Papa Ngaro alongside our Kapa Haka group blessed our garden enabling us to start the process of creating our garden. Papa Ngaro was joined by his whānau, who have had four generations of attendance at our school. One of our new enrolments and youngest tamariki at our school, his moko, planted the first plant in the garden with her great Nana. It was a very special moment representative of the many whānau generations who have been through our school on their learning journey.  

We engaged landscape designer, 'Kaye Miller' to design our garden from our humble plan and landscapers to create the garden on our whenua. The beautiful Koru symbolises new life and hope.

We are grateful to our community for their contributions. Especially to families who donated money to help us buy plants and to all of the many people who worked hard to make this special garden a reality.

Our next steps are to develop our curriculum using the Rongoa Garden as context for learning te reo Māori as a school.