Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori 2025. Kupa-Tāne (10) is Yr 6 at Te Ākau ki Pāpāmoa School and Kāhu (8) is Yr 3. This week Kupz welcomed manuhiri from council to his kura. The next day he represented his kura at the inaugural Te Puna Kōrero o Pāpamoa, the Colin Reeder Māori Speech event, developed by Te Kahui Ako o te Waka Hourua ki Pāpāmoa and hosted by Pāpāmoa College.

A fave moment from this day was having Kāhu Boy jump in the waiata tautoko for his big bro with a group of seniors. 💙✨

This preceded Kupz being part of a tautoko crew for his classmate speaking at a regional speech event, where a māmā from another kura messaged to say he led a mean haka. 🥰

This all followed Kupz having a crack at competitive speeches at school this year for the first time. They had to speak in front of a huge audience for the finals which he reckoned was pretty fun 🤪 His speech was titled “How te Reo Māori is shaping my world”.

Next year, Kāhu will carry on with his reo rua and kapa haka journey, while Kupa starts at Te Puke Intermediate in a reo Māori immersion class. And I hope to carry on studying at Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa, after finishing L5, Te Rōnakitanga this year.

(Accompanying this note are drawings and notes from Kupz and Kāhu Boy.)

My hope for te reo Māori is that it is loved and honoured, and that Aotearoa is a truly bilingual whenua. My sons, Kupa-Tāne and Kāhu, and I have a dream that their tamariki will grow up strong in our reo, as will their mokopuna and so on.

This would see te reo Māori back within our whānau, after my grandparents Hemi Pereiha (Fraser) King and Ramari King (nee Wells) were the last to be raised with it - four generations earlier.

Kei aku kākano, ngā manawa ora o te ngahere, ko taku whānau,

Kia kaha tātou ki tō tātou reo, he hononga nō tātou ki o tātou tīpuna. Kia maumahara - ko te reo te waka e kawe ana i ā tātou moemoeā.

Ka haere tonu tātou.

Aroha au ki a koutou katoa.