Nurturing a sense of identity

Arihia Stirling, the much-honoured principal of the school, talks here about the school’s belief that to create successful futures, young people need to discover who they are, together with a sense of belonging.

“We really need to ensure that our children come from a space where they feel safe about their self-identity, which will improve their self-efficacy because they understand who they are, why they are, where they’ve come from. That’s totally different to just teaching a person something.

In terms of us as Maori, we come from quite a broken space. And our children need to understand that you don’t need to remain feeling deprived from being Maori, you can still be Maori and a much better world that recognise their Maori-ness. When our students know how important their Maori-ness is, then everything’s important. When they know how important their language is, then everything’s important.