"I tell the parents: “Here’s my number. If you need me to pick up the tamariki, ring me. I’ll take them to school and drop them off after kura.” Even though our school has a van, sometimes our parents and whānau are too whakamā to ask for help.
We’re part of the kai in schools programme, so we have lunch provided at school, and we have fruit, and we do a breakfast programme. The tamariki know they can come to school from 8.30am every morning and have breakfast. Then, when the bell goes, they’ll go to class with a full puku, ready to learn.
And whoever the adults are in our children’s lives — whether they’re parents, aunties, uncles, kuia or koroua — we have an open door. They know that they can come in anytime to our class and see how their tamaiti is doing.
I tell them that we need these tamariki to be “the best them that they can be”. And for that to happen, it’s important for them to be at kura every single day. And then I tell them: “You can come in, too, and show your face, so that your kids can see us together.”
Those little things mean a lot to a tamaiti. Then when the tamariki go home and talk about “Whaea Āwhi”, the whānau know exactly who they mean."
Te Moana-ā-Toi | Bay of Plenty | Rotorua | 2020-29 | Story is by tangata whenua
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