Te Reo Māori

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Māori Achievement

At Little River School, we are committed to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and supporting success for Māori learners as Māori. Our goals reflect our dedication to building a culturally responsive and inclusive school environment:

Te Reo Māori Integration: Implement and maintain a foundational Te Reo M?ori programme across all year levels, with integration into wider curriculum areas wherever possible.
Tikanga Māori Understanding: Continue developing a shared understanding of Tikanga Māori throughout the school through regular pōwhiri, marae visits, and classroom learning.
Whānau Engagement: Strengthen communication and connections with our whānau, ensuring they feel valued, heard, and involved in their children’s learning journey.
Positive Māori Role Models: Provide opportunities for students to engage with inspiring Māori role models, helping to grow confidence, pride, and aspirations.

Māori Achieving Success as Māori at Little River School

At Little River School, we are committed to supporting Māori learners to thrive as Māori. Guided by the principles of Ka Hikitia (Ministry of Education, 2007), we recognise that success for Māori means achieving academically while also having cultural identity, language, and values acknowledged and nurtured.

We aim to ensure that Māori students enjoy education success as Māori, by focusing on four key outcomes:

All learners work with others to shape successful learning and education pathways that reflect who they are and where they want to go.
All learners excel and realise their unique cultural identity and potential.
All learners confidently participate in and contribute to te ao Māori — the Māori world.
All learners gain the universal skills and knowledge needed to thrive in Aotearoa New Zealand and in the wider world.

This approach is woven through our teaching practice, relationships, and community engagement, as we continue to strengthen culturally responsive learning environments where every ākonga feels seen, valued, and empowered.

These key factors are seen as critical to enhancing and strengthening Māori engagement and communication:

Leadership

Relationships

School culture

Partnerships

Community networks

Ako

Ako is a dynamic form of learning where the educator and the student learn from each other in an interactive way. Ako is grounded in the principle of reciprocity and recognises that the student and whānau cannot be separated.

When ako is a key element of teaching and learning, educators’ practices are informed by the latest research and are both deliberate and reflective.

Identity, language and culture count

Students do better in education when, what and how they learn builds on what is familiar to them, and reflects and positively reinforces where they come from, what they value and what they already know. Māori students are more likely to achieve when they see themselves, their parents, whānau, hapū, iwi and community reflected in learning and teaching.