PAEROA CENTRAL SCHOOL ADVERTISING FEATURE
It takes vision, purpose and a clear sense of direction to lead a school. It’s the sort of leadership that has shaped Te Kura Tuatahi o Paeroa: Paeroa Central School for generations.
But if there’s something that has allowed the kura (school) to remain strong for 150 years, principal Mona Hingston believes it is the people. “I think the legacy is really the whānau and the community”.
It’s what makes the upcoming 150th jubilee on December 5 to 6 a remarkable landmark that honours generations of ākonga (students), kaiako (teachers) and whānau (families) of Paeroa Central School.
Principal Mona said it was a milestone that recognised “our proud history, our community, and our future”. One thing was certain: “our kura has a rich hītori [history]”.
It was once the only school in Paeroa and had more than 400 students in its heyday, she said. “One of our original school rooms still stands proudly on our site today.”
There were lots of people, who attended the school in the 50s, who were excited to head back to Paeroa for the jubilee, she said.
“I think they’ll be quite surprised, because they’re not locals, to come back and see [the school]. “It will be a huge change for them.”
One of the big changes at the school is it’s now a dual medium kura with both English and Māori medium pathways, and a roll of 96 per cent Māori ākonga.
“Our tamariki and kaiako are deeply connected to Hauraki iwi – Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāti Tara Tokanui, Ngāti Hako, and hapū Ngāti Tawhaki – and we celebrate that identity every day in our learning, our values, and our kaupapa.”
Mona said the students in Māori medium were there all the time, but the English medium students really struggled.
“They are a bit whakama about their culture. Even though we all do kapa haka together [and] all do powhiri,” she said.
“If you take them away, they become very shy. They like being in the numbers. So we’re trying to build that.”
Another change is the classroom blocks names and house group names. Classroom names used to represent teachers from the 1960s and 1970s such as Shaw, Malcolm and Barrett Blocks, but now represented five Hauraki kaitiaki (guardians): Takareko, Ureia, Tūī, Papakauri and Mumuhau. The house groups, which were named after mines such as Woodstock and Talisman, now represented the awa (rivers) of Hauraki: Piako, Waihōu, Tarariki and Ōhinemuri. Something that helped the kura to thrive was the support of whānau and the community. One notable relationship the school has with a local group is its partnership with Rotary Paeroa. President Kelvin Ricketts said he wanted to see Rotary become very much a part of the community, focussed on youth and getting involved with iwi. “The more we can do in the community, the better.”
That’s when Paeroa Central School came to their attention. The group supported Paeroa Central School by offering time and manual and financial support for projects such as the sandpits, sunshades and looking after the gardens, he said. They also donated stationery packs to the school. “There’s things we can do. And it’s important we do it,” he said.
nurture the next generation in Paeroa, and also about the connections to the area within the school. “We have a lot of Hauraki kaiako linked to Hauraki iwi.”
There was one kaiako who shifted home to Hauraki to give back to their iwi, she said, and another who was once a student in the 1960s who came back as a kaiako.
Even though Mona didn’t grow up in Paeroa, she visited her grandparents who lived there, and said it had a “special place in my heart”.
“And my partner went to this school. It’s just the links to Hauraki that all of our staff have.”
It was clear Paeroa Central is a place where ties to the past and the future connected.
Mona said it was a kura that honoured its beginnings and embraced its evolving identity of education in Aotearoa.
“As we celebrate 150 years of learning, we pay tribute to those who shaped this journey… whose courage and vision reignited the flame of Māori medium education in Paeroa. Their legacy lives on in every child who now learns proudly in te reo Māori and English — tamariki who know who they are, where they come from, and how to stand strong in both worlds.”
By DAVIDDA HIKATANGATA
