Paparoa Street School - Rebuilding our school

Paparoa Street School is located in the suburb of Papanui, Christchurch. It is in the rohe of Ngāi Tūāhuriri. They have been working towards an extensive refurbishment of their school buildings and site, which will be completed by 2024. Grow Waitaha and Mātauraka Mahaanui have worked alongside the school to support the development of their Education Brief and to unpack their cultural narrative. The school has focused on ensuring that their beliefs about teaching and learning, captured in their Education Brief, are reflected in their new spaces, and that their cultural narrative is brought to life during this process.

In late 2020, Dianne Robinson (Mana Whenua Education Facilitator) and Lynne Te Aika (Ngāi Tūāhuriri Rūnanga) presented Paparoa Street School with their naming document. This provided the school with a cohesive, personalised narrative that connected everyone to their place, for all to have an authentic understanding of their location through the names provided in that storying. It was shared at an exciting presentation afternoon with staff, the board of Trustees, and wider community members.

Kaiako explored possibilities for a school-wide learning theme in 2021 that would provide a context for integrated and authentic learning, and would engage ākonga during the refurbishment process. After workshops with ākonga and kaiako, the theme emerged: “Tūrangawaewae - what is our story and how will they know?”, setting the scene for an exciting year of learning ahead. 

Dianne has supported kaiako in a range of ways to help them deeply understand their location and to learn about places of significance nearby. This included an exploration of the local area and ideas for telling their own story. Dianne also talked about different ways that names could be celebrated, understood, and brought to life in the school. A wide range of resources were provided that teachers could use with confidence knowing that they came from reliable sources.

“It’s wonderful to see a school authentically engaging in their story in so many different ways. I can’t wait to hear about their new curriculum as they move forward.” 

- Dianne Robinson

“For us, it is about carefully unpacking what a cultural narrative is. A cultural narrative describes what is unique about a place and helps us to make connections to the whenua (land) and to Mana Whenua (Ngāi Tūāhuriri) who have a relationship with the land. It helps us to build an understanding of whakapapa, traditional and spiritual connections (tikanga), and values. It builds knowledge of what our place is, what happened here in the past (the journey and settlement of the area, significant sites, landmarks and local stories) and how we can partner with Mana Whenua to continue to look after it as kaitiaki (guardians). Mana Whenua (Ngāi Tūāhuriri) gifted us the taonga of our own cultural narrative - we now need to unpack the story; the names that were given and be able to retell it to preserve it for the future.” 

- Tirina Goldsmith, Team Leader, Paparoa Street School

Paparoa Street School has a strong pedagogical commitment to inquiry-based learning. This inquiry approach has enhanced the way teachers have involved learners with the school’s cultural narrative. 

“As Inquiry designers, we have been fortunate to have had an authentic context, ‘Turangawaewae: What is our story and how will they know?’ in which to develop and strengthen our learners’ capabilities when inquiring. We have worked through the inquiry cycle a number of times throughout the year, integrating various curriculum areas from oral language, reading, writing, history, and technology. The children have been driving their own learning, working alongside other learners with shared passions, regardless of age. The concept of tuakana-teina has been strengthened and has become how we learn. This rich inquiry-driven process has allowed us the space to thoroughly unpack our story and discover the various creative ways that stories can be shared with a wider audience and kept alive for future generations. Our learners have been discovering the importance of developing their reflective, critical and creative thinking skills when inquiring into our unique history and story and using the design process to help them plan, create, prototype and test different ideas to share our story and ultimately inspire and impact others.”  

- Kate Walcott, Teacher, Paparoa Street School

Another important focus has been to engage ākonga in the refurbishment process. This has linked really well to the learning theme, as ākonga have had the opportunity to be developing the next phase of the Paparoa Street School story.

“After we learnt about our Cultural Narrative here at Paparoa Street School we were asked to use this new learning and demonstrate it through one of our passions. I chose Visual Arts. We worked in small groups and we learnt about the different types of art that are used to tell stories. As part of this inquiry we visited the city centre and looked at a number of art works, like the Riverside drains to get inspiration for our own artworks. Back at school my team chose window decals to show our story. We learnt that you had to use certain materials as some were more effective than others and we needed to research what meanings the Māori patterns, known as kōwhaiwhai patterns, represented before we started our first designs. We created a pattern that represented our history and what our school used to look like. It will be awesome to see some of our designs in the rebuild.” 

- Student, Paparoa Street School

The school selected a design team of kaiako and ākonga to lead in this area. They worked with Ngaire Shepherd-Wills from Grow Waitaha to consider design ideas and possibilities. Dianne suggested schools to visit and the group visited Lyttelton School and Sumner School.  Ākonga showcased their learning environments and how learning operates in their school. They shared their cultural narrative, what it means to them as a school, and how it is brought to life in their learning environment. This opportunity, for ākonga by ākonga, provided an incredibly rich learning experience for the design team. The design team was then able to share their learning back at school with the rest of their kāinga. They also met with the architects developing the Paparoa Street School refurbishment project.

“We visited Sumner and Lyttelton Schools. We saw they had good ideas but we are going to combine their ideas with ours and make better ideas for us to use in our school.”

- Bellamy C, Student Year 4 

Ākonga have continued to be at the centre of this learning journey as they worked towards choosing names for the new school spaces, from their naming document. They researched and used their critical thinking skills to decide what names would be best for particular spaces. They then presented their ideas to an audience that included Dianne, Grow Waitaha representatives, MOE representatives, BOT, Senior Team Leaders.

This was an exciting phase, with ākonga incredibly passionate about their choices of names and the reasons why.

“As part of our inquiry into, ‘Turangawaewae - What is our story and how will they know,’ I designed a large art piece for one of the walls in our new buildings. After researching the different Māori patterns and visiting the city for inspiration I then made a prototype of my design. I tested my prototype by presenting it to a panel of experts, ‘The Dragon's Den.’ I got feedback and feed forward from them and this helped me think about some possible changes that I may make. I was really proud of my design because I worked really hard on it and it allowed me to discover more about my own culture and story.” 

- Paparoa Street Student

“How often do we hear of an opportunity for a 5 year old to leave a legacy for their school, as they shared their reasons for choosing the names for the spaces in their kāinga?”  

- Dianne Robinson, Mana Whenua Facilitator

This rich learning opportunity continues to develop as the refurbishment project gets underway. As of August 2022, the first buildings have been completed and the cultural narrative is strongly evident in the new spaces. A landscaping project is also underway. Ākonga and kaiako are continuing prototyping ways of teaching and learning as they work in the school hall while their new environments are developed.

“It was important to us that we were able to see clearly how our values are strongly connected to our cultural narrative and how both values and narrative are evident in our physical spaces. We want our children to understand and own the story of the place they belong at school and be proud of this. We want it to be clear to all that we are both extrinsically and intrinsically a school of Aotearoa New Zealand. He Paparoa, He whenua nōku. He Paparoa, Manaakitia. He Paparoa, Kia ngākau whitawhita, Kia māia, kia manawanui, Belonging, Kindness, Passion and Bravery.” 

- Pene Abbie, Principal

Find out more by visiting Paparoa Street School’s website. Visit the Rebuild section of the website, in particular the Naming Story.