On 23 June this year, Meadow Peacocke represented our school in the Manu Kōrero Te Arawa Regionals in the Sir Turi Carroll Junior English Section and won! The Sir Turi Carroll requires students to speak between 4 and 8 minutes without cue cards. This meant a lot of fundraising to get $13,000 to take 11 people to Nationals in Dunedin.
On 18 September, nine rangatahi ranging from year 10-13, along with whaea Julie and matua Brett, met at school to go to Dunedin via Auckland Airport. After a scary flight, our students settled into their accommodation. Tuesday allowed a quick tour of the city and then a pōwhiri at the More FM Arena. Following that, there was a visit to acknowledge the prisoners taken from Parihaka who died in Dunedin and were put in unmarked graves. Then a hangi at the University of Otago. An early start and a long day on Wednesday to support the senior Te Arawa speakers and then a pō whakangahau/disco to whakawhanaunga with the other competing schools from all around the motu. Thursday was Meadow's day. However, a tour around the uni helped to quell nerves and gave the rangatahi a chance to see what Otago University has to offer. Meadow's time slot was 3rd to last on the schedule; a long time to wait. She did us proud and ended up coming 13th with average scores in the high 90's out of 100.
Congratulations Meadow, you have an incredibly promising future.
