In the beginning it was tough going. Classroom materials were hard to come by, and often, they were donated by local whānau. The main materials used to teach were a whiteboard, some sheets of paper and a guitar. During those first years, there weren’t even any school buildings - the kura was based out of a room in Carnegie Hall.
When the kura moved to its current location, the students finally had their own classrooms to learn in. The school started off small, but over time, more and more buildings were added as more tamariki arrived.
At that time, the kura only catered to primary and intermediate school students from Years 1 to 8. But just as happened with kōhanga reo in the years before, once kids left the full-immersion environment of kura, they stopped speaking Māori.
But the final push to establish a wharekura, a secondary school, came from the students themselves. Five students had graduated from primary kura and looked set to be headed to mainstream secondary schools to complete their schooling. But on the first day of term, instead of being in the classroom, they showed up at the front gates of the kura. Their message was simple: ‘This is our school, we want to be here.’ So the kura eventually added its wharekura, now catering for students from day one through to graduation.
But being part of the kaupapa doesn’t end when a student graduates. There is a saying among the alumni of kura kaupapa Māori: ‘Kia tū hei raukura mō tō iwi’ - become a champion for your people. This means when students leave the bubble of kura and go out into the world, they are equipped to represent their people and their school. It’s also a reminder to the students that kura doesn’t just end at graduation.
Last year, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tamaki Nui-ā-Rua celebrated its 30th birthday. In comparison to most schools, that’s a relatively short lifetime, but as the kura kaupapa movement as a whole is less than 40 years old, it’s definitely worth celebrating.
