supporting tiriti-based curriculum delivery in mainstream early ...

One of the areas Alison considered important was her growing
relationship with the younger children who were siblings of those at kindergarten. 2
Alison and Brodie planned to invite parents and children to bring in photos of
holiday events – especially with the wider family groups. One of the highlights for
the teachers was that Māori families came to their kindergarten disco. It is this
growing development of family relationships that is embodied in
whakawhanaungatanga, which is important in all early childhood services. It was
these relationships with whānau Māori that led to the success of the pōwhiri, which
is discussed in the next section.
5.3.2 Pōwhiri
The culmination of the action research cycles with Case Study Two was a
pōwhiri and kapa haka performance at the local primary school, at which I was also
present. The early interactions described above led to the kindergarten being
invited to a pōwhiri at the local school which provided “opportunities to learn and
use the Māori language through social interaction” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.
43). In her journal Brodie described the preparation for this visit:
Tomorrow we are going to Name School to watch the Kapa Haka group
perform. We are going to have a pōwhiri. So we have been practicing a
waiata with the children and also have one of our dads to carry out the
whaikōrero. This is going to be such a moving experience for our
children, as only a few of them have experienced a Māori performance
(Jl: B, 21/10/04).
In our action research meeting after the pōwhiri, Brodie elaborated on the
process of discovering how one the whānau Māori from the kindergarten was
involved with the local school:
We had our teacher aide ringing around the local school to find out
where there‟s a kapa haka group and we found out it was nearby. And
we didn‟t realise it was L who took it and then she came in the next day
and said ahhh, it‟s you who‟s taking it (Tr: B, 22/10/04).
The connections that had been made through relationships between the
parents at the marae and the kindergarten enabled whānau Māori to become
involved in preparing children, staff, and parents for the pōwhiri. The children at
the local school officially and with traditional Māori protocol, welcomed the
kindergarten children, their parents, and the teachers to the school. One of the
2 Alison had only worked in kindergarten settings and, therefore, with children aged 3 and 4 years.
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