The Enviroschools team in Ōtautahi have boosted the number of Early Childhood Education (ECE) Enviroschools recently, bringing on six new centres since 2023. In the past we have hosted termly cluster hui around Waitaha/Canterbury for Enviroschools kaiako/teachers from all 3 sectors (ECE, primary and secondary).
The hui provided opportunities to connect with each other and be inspired.
Earlier this year a few ECE kaiako suggested having something tailored specifically to them. We sent out a survey to see if anyone would like to host this hui, but those who replied had tamariki at their centres until 5:30 pm each day, so we decided to host an event at our central Christchurch Environment Canterbury office.
The purpose of our hui was to support kaiako in their Enviroschools mahi by exploring key resources and sharing ideas for Matariki celebrations. We also wanted to provide space for building connections and networking.
We shared a pānui/booklet created by Roimata and Katie from the Enviroschools National Team called Puanga (Puaka) and Matariki ECE Pānui. For those with access to the team area, we recommend you check it out!
Creativity and different cultural perspectives were explored.
Kaiako were asked to bring along useful resources to share as inspiration, in the lead up to Matariki, and this led to many rich discussions and excitement around the room about possibilities. We gathered a lot of ideas, including making soup and damper/scones, planting fruit or native trees, sharing kai with their community, weaving harakeke, holding a Grandparents Day that includes sharing pūrākau/stories, campfires and roasting marshmallows with whānau, singing waiata translated into different languages, making kites and paper mâché masks, and excursions to local reserves.
This group of kaiako brought so much energy and enthusiasm into the room. The written feedback was hugely positive, with kaiako particularly enjoying the opportunity to share ideas and learn from each other’s experiences.
Ideas for Matariki learning and fun were shared and captured.
We’re now planning to run hui especially for our ECE kaiako regularly (possibly biannually) to provide many more opportunities for them to connect and be inspired by each other’s mahi. Hopefully in the future some of our centres will be able to host these so that kaiako can have a look around different Enviroschools. We’ll just need to be creative to figure out how to make that happen when most centres don’t close until 5:30pm!