School Values and Me

Tamariki understand how the school's values strengthen wellbeing, as connected to the dimensions of te whare tapa whā.

School Values are all about creating a school or kura culture and tikanga. Exploring these with tamariki can really help embed them and make them all the more meaningful And what better way to do this than with Tā Mason Durie's Te Whare Tapa Whā?

Find your School Values and Me worksheet here. Either one for each tamariki, or you might like them to work in pairs or groups.

This is an activity where you can align with your School Values or Tikanga any time of the year. Sometimes it can be a certain time of the year, for example, how do I School Values or Tikanga align with Matariki?

You might head to your Te Whare Tapa Whā wall display and /or you could use our new School Values and Me worksheet and it will guide you through.

Choose the value that you want to focus on, or best speaks to the time of year, or event. Start the kōrero:

• Taha hinengaro - put simply, our taha hinengaro is about how we think and feel. If this school value is always present what might this feel like? How might we think about ourselves and others?
• Taha tinana - how would our bodies be impacted if this school value was always present?
• Taha wairua - what greater benefits would there be if we truly lived by our values and tikanga? What kind of person do we want to be in the world? What would make our ancestors proud?
• Taha whānau - what would it be like if we thought of our classroom or kura as being ‘like family’ with this value or tikanga?
• Whenua - how would we look to our whenua if this school value was present? What difference would that make?

Kōrero about what it might look like if this value was always present at your school or kura. Then ask tamariki how they could make this happen and write this down. They might do this is groups.

Extend the kōrero if it's valuable for you and your tamariki, ask for the worksheets back and add these to your wall display as things you ‘do’ at your school or kura, or in your classroom. Your tamariki commitments, if you like.

Or create artwork that adds to your display that demonstrates the School Value across all the whare pou.

We know you’ll have amazing ideas around this - take it away kaiako!

Tā Mason Durie, whose mahi acts as inspiration for all we do.