Te Aka Pūkaea

“It's not just a classroom, it's a space where we can just be Māori, no matter what our involvement with our whānau, or our iwi, or our hapū has been in the past, you can just go in and be Māori in your own way (Pāpā).”

A Māori Modern Learning Environment

About this project

Research about Modern Learning Environments (MLE) in Aotearoa rarely includes the voice of Māori teachers, whānau and students. This project is one of the few studies undertaken that is specific to Māori experiences of a Māori medium MLE at Te Aka Pūkaea, Newton Central Primary School.

Utilising a Kaupapa Māori approach, our initial intent was to investigate the impact of this MMLE as a dual Māori-medium pathway with a focus on whānau aspirations for te reo Māori. However, findings relayed a much deeper reflection on what ‘the space’ means for Māori in these settings. The concept of space is discussed in multiple ways, with whānau speaking to how they find, determine, navigate, and hold te reo Māori space. In this kōrero, and across the research interviews, the importance of language space was emphasised not only in an educational sense but because of the profoundly significant cultural, political, and spiritual dimensions of te reo Māori space for tamariki and their whānau.