Something you may not know about Waimārama is that unless you wanna truck your babies to town regularly, the kōhanga reo in Waimārama is the only option* for pre-school or early learning service in all of Waimārama, Ocean Beach and Maraetotara.
* except for Aunty B who does in-home care ;)
Most of our children attended / are attending the kōhanga. Our kids grandmother is the head Kaiako / Teacher at the kōhanga so there was never really going to be any argument. Most importantly, we both want our tamariki to learn te Reo Māori at a young age so they don't have to do it the hard way as adults - you know what I mean ... the hard way, trying to find time to fit it into your other priorities like studying (unless your studying te reo), earning a living and looking after your whānau etc etc.
I was new to the kōhanga movement 6 years ago. My youngest son attended but I didn't get involved. I was brainwashed by the daycare mentality of drop off / pickup and that's it. This had been my attitude when our younger kids started - other than catching up with my mother-in-law on the "goss" 😲😜 ... I didn't spend much time at the kōhanga.
This all changed when ERO came this year and criticised us for having low whānau engagement. Fast forward to now (only a few months later) and things are VERY different. Whānau have been busy having weekly meetings to review our direction and implement some practices that will ensure we deliver a quality early learning service in te Reo Māori now and into the future.
Notice I started saying "our" and "we"...
...you may not know this but at Kōhanga Reo around Aotearoa, it's the whānau (i.e. the families of the tamariki / children who are enrolled at the kōhanga) who are the governors of the kōhanga - kind of like the board of trustees for a school but every parent / grandparent is automatically involved!
No dodging the bullet on this one no matter how hard you try...😮😅
Something else you may not know is that the kōhanga reo movement survives through whānau support by way of governance, setting the strategic direction, and VOLUNTEERING!
That's right. Funding for kōhanga reo has been some 20% lower than other ECE providers in NZ for a long time, which means that we rely on parents, grandparents and whānau to spend a few hours each week helping our Kaiako to care for our tamariki. Without this volunteer help, many kōhanga reo around Aotearoa would not be able to keep the doors open.
Many of our parents work. And volunteer in ways other than on the floor. I'm one of those parents. When I was the Chair of our local school BOT, I remember getting the looks and hints at giving more of my time to the school - just know that all rolls off my back. I'm all good with what time sacrifices I make in the areas of management and governance that I give. 🤨👀😎
Something that has affected our kōhanga is that we have had to stop running our transport van for tamariki in town as it just isn't viable anymore. This is a real shame, as we have many tamariki that live in town who whakapapa to Waimārama and learning on their marae would be beneficial in so many ways. However, it was one of those difficult decisions we as whānau had to make. We needed to reduce our expenditure to match our income, and with 7 tamariki (3 of whom are 5 this year) we needed to get real.
The rest of 2019 should be a good year to consolidate, improve and then look to grow from 2020. I'm looking forward to flexing my marketing muscles to help with that - I didn't get a $40k student loan for nothing!
