New rooms, new start for Shannon School

A Horowhenua school is celebrating a new beginning with the opening of two new spaces to help with children’s learning.

Shannon School held an official opening yesterday for a new kitchen and a new te reo Māori immersion classroom. It has also given new names to seven spaces.

Principal Nick Julian said it was a huge day for the school and for the community.

The primary school previously had an immersion class, but it stopped being used about 10 years ago when the number of children in it dropped.

Now 34 children were in the new immersion class. “The board had always committed to bringing it back and in a way which it can continually grow and be sustainable and enrich the whole school.”

Julian said they wanted it to work in partnership with local iwi Ngāti Whakatere and what the iwi wanted was for every child to have the right to learn their language, their history, tikanga and kawa (rights and customs).

The new kitchen is a room inside the school hall previously used for teaching.

When the lunches-in-schools programme started three years ago, the school decided it would make the lunches in-house rather than outsourcing the work.

So having a dedicated kitchen would make a big difference.

Previously the only kitchen was in the staff room, so that became the kitchen for making the lunches and the staff room was moved elsewhere. The new kitchen was delayed for six months when it was found the building wasn’t up to code and more work had to be done.

Julian said it was brilliant for the school but also as a community resource.

He hoped the Government would continue the lunches programme.

The children could be involved in cooking the food and they could see the whole process.

The school grows food in its orchard and garden, cooks it and puts food waste into compost.

The immersion classroom is called Te Whare Kākano: New Beginnings.

The main school hall, which is used for various things including assemblies and school graduations, is called Te Whare Whiringa: Interweaving Hubs of Knowledge.

Julian said it was where all the knowledge in the school was based.

ADELE RYCROFT / MANAWATŪ STANDARD Shannon School pupils Te Maia Manu Roimata Teera Winterburn, left, Rangihae o te ata Taukawe McLeod Te Peeti, Patience Ataahua Howe and Maddison Jodi Woodmass Rauhihi in the school’s new kitchen.

Shannon School pupil Fyneax Tafilipepe, centre, watches other children play the Tākaro card game in the school’s new Māori immersion class Te Whare Kākano.

Shannon School principal Nick Julian says the opening of the two new rooms is a big day for the community.