Hope School students, family members and members of the community gathered in the school grounds for a hangi on Friday last week, and enjoyed a meal of food cooked in the ground.
The school partnered with members of local iwi and had help from several members of the Whakatū Marae to make sure the day went off without a hitch.
“It was really exciting,” says principal Freya Hogarth.
Freya says the school discussed the idea of hosting a hangi last year.
“We thought it would be a really great experience for our kids and for our community,” she says.
Freya says the rural school has been working to incorporate Te Ao Māori into the curriculum.
“We have done quite a bit to really incorporate Te Ao Māori into the way we do things at Hope School. We thought that the idea of having a hangi would be really great to tie in with Matariki celebrations, and teaching our kids about that,” she says.
Freya says that the hangi was a way to celebrate Matariki — the Maori New Year. Students spent the week learning about Matariki, which took place during the school holidays this year.
Parent helper Jacinta Boyd says that the entire community embraced the event.
“The whole community has got right behind it. We have a school population of 70 and we had 120 people there,” she says.
The students helped dig the pit early in the morning, and the food was placed in to cook at around 2:30pm.
Students and their families gathered again at 5:30pm, to dig the food out from the pit and to eat it.
Freya says that the last time the school had a hangi was in the early 1970’s.
“The community has been fantastic with donations, all the wood was been donated, a lot of the food was been donated by local businesses. We have been blown away by the people who have been involved and the parent community,” she says.
Freya says that it was a fantastic occasion.
“We had a tremendous turnout, the kids made lanterns to light up the night. It was a really lovely community celebration.”
“It was such rich learning for them. They were able to see all of the steps, it was such a good experience.”
“We had some Kaumātua from some of the local iwi, so that was a real blessing as well.”