Five-year-old Kayde McDonnell-Butler loves singing, drama, kapa haka and playing on his drift bike.
And this week Kayde has something new to look forward to - he's starting school for the very first time. He'll take his place in a new entrants' class at Castlecliff School on Wednesday.
Kayde is one of around 10,500 new school starters out of 765,400 students returning to the clasroom this week with their parents having negotiating the exhausting and expensive annual challenge of uniform and stationery buying.
Kayde has made two visits to the Castlecliff school, and has met the school's principal, Katherine Ellery, although he's yet to meet his class teacher.
And he is excited about the new adventure of school.