Principal returns to her roots

Makoura College old girl Roimata Rimene says as the new principal at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Wairarapa she will carry on developing homegrown teachers at the Masterton school.

Ms Rimene, Rangitane o Wairarapa and Te Whanau Whero, said she is related to most, if not all, of the 65 children enrolled for the upcoming term at the decile 2 Maori language immersion school, which is across the road from her former college in Johnstone St.

She starts this week as principal after teaching at the Year 1 to 13 school for the past five years and a powhiri held for her on the first day of the new term on Monday also bid welcome to new teacher, Pania Smith, Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa.

Ms Rimene said she is part of an ongoing strategy launched by immediate past principal Pirihira Haira of developing a roster of homegrown teachers which also includes Mrs Smith, daughter of Masterton man Lawrence Reiri.

Two of the six new students who started at the school on Monday were Mrs Smith's children, Ms Rimene said, which was a calculated boon of having teachers returning home to Wairarapa to teach.

"Pania was teaching in Auckland and wanted to return, so we're lucky to be able to say we have homegrown teachers who have come back to Wairarapa to teach and the students, the children, they're all our relations, all our whanau.

"We wanted to have somebody from here, to come back here. I didn't start this, it was my predecessor, Pirihira, who started getting homegrown. We are investing in our future by growing our own," Ms Rimene said.

Ms Rimene, niece of late Wairarapa Maori leader Kuki Rimene, said she had been "schooled" at Makoura College and went overseas as an exchange student before completing a degree in te reo Maori at Victoria University.

In 1995 she went to Japan to teach English and returned home a decade later after "deciding to come home and settle down".

She said there were marked similarities between the Japanese and Maori cultures including the high regard in which elders were held and the spoken languages "sound the same" despite grammatical differences.

She said she also had taught te reo Maori at the Wairarapa Teen Parent Unit at Makoura College in 2007 before starting the next year as kaiako, or teacher, at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Wairarapa.

"Now I'm here as principal. It wasn't part of my plan at all but I welcome the challenge as part of my journey. I don't think this will be easy but I know that with the support of my whanau and iwi, it will be the continuation of a new phase for the school."