Today St Patrick’s Panmure students journeyed out to Due Drop Centre in Manukau to experience using dance to express themselves and retell a Māori legend.

Upon arrival we were greeted by the Kaikanikani ō Atamira. We were introduced to each member and then took a short walk to stand in front of their Pou Tāonga and hear the story behind the creation of Pou Kapua, its elements and inspiration behind its creation. Then we all headed inside, removed our shoes and ran through a few warm up activities while facing each other in a great big circle. Following on from this, students were given a short dance routine to familiarise themselves with major Atua and creatures of land, forest, air and ocean.

After a short morning tea break, we were treated to a performance of the legend of Matakerepō and Tāwhaki by our Kaikanikani. Then students were split into 3 groups and worked on a short routine with an Atamira Kaikanikani, followed by a performance of all 3 routines together.

St Patrick’s School are so grateful for having this opportunity and would like to give our heartfelt thanks to Due Drop Centre for transporting us, hosting us and Atamira for imparting some of their knowledge onto our tamariki.

Our first day of 2026 was a lot of fun – Our Year 6 students have stepped up into the role of Tuakana to the Year 5 students who are new to our class. We are all getting to know each other quickly so we can learn and achieve great things this year.

Have you ever wondered about how our ancestors travelled to Aotearoa? Rm 7’s investigation lead them to actually building their own Waka Hourua! Who knew rm 7 were a bunch of waka builders!!

We’ve had an amazing time celebrating our annual Mission Day. Here are some photos from the day.

In our Inquiry work this term, Room 7 have been learning how Japanese Pop Culture has grown in popularity outside of Japan. We have researched the history, evolution and spread of this subculture as a class and created this Slide deck to present our learning.

Room 7 have been learning about the life and achievements of Euphrasie Barbier, using Google Drawing to collect, organise and present what they have learned:

Every year St Patrick’s School holds a fundraiser for the Holy Orphanage in India.
We call this Mission Day.
We have not had a normal Mission Day in years because of Covid. Instead of having our community come to our school for a market day, we held “a-thons” in our classes.  This year the school decided we were going to bring the market day back. We would once again make things and sell them or make games to play.
This is our behind the scenes of our preparation for Mission Day.

In our final week of Term 1 Rooms 6 and 7 have been creating wearable art out of our waste materials. Here’s what Roland had to say about his experience:

In the afternoon 2:06 we did our Wearable Art Design at our school. when I was almost done with my panda costume I didn’t know what to do with my other body parts because all my classmates stole all of the boxes and it made me worry that I have nothing to do so I guess I have to paint without other body parts that I guess I don’t need…

When it was time to do the fashion show all of us were screaming when we forgot that all of the other classes from Saint Patricks School were literally sitting already and we were really nervous and awkward so everyone lined up and I was really and really nervous that I was the first one in the animal group and it was me the panda, Marii the tiger and Pyro the turtle and Pyro also told me that his neck actually really hurts so I felt pretty laughing really hard that the fashion show was about to start…. so I guess I should start walking following the tape that Mr. Bell should do.

I finally finished following the tape and I almost tripped over by the door when I got out. I went back to the line to wait for the others and when they all came back I didn’t know what to do but to wait for the teacher to say something. They told me to go walk again so I walk and the others behind me are following me just like me then all of us are now back where we were.

all the classes were now back doing their work and all of us were too hot after the fashion show but now at least we can rest and clean the class room when we are done resting. Mr. Bell told us we needed to clean the class room and all of us were so tired and we have now cleaned it.

When we now cleaned the class room we went home and all slept well.

Here at St. Patrick’s School we REALLY look forward to celebrating OUR special day. That is, when the weather decides to let us!

Pio has written a Post about our St Patrick’s Day celebrations Click here.