Napier Girls High School has unveiled new names for its four school houses, incorporating te ao Māori and recognising four inspirational women and the values each represented.
Head prefect - manukura Amaia Watson (Ngāti Kahungunu) helped push for the name change. She says the intention was to create meaningful and creative names for the houses.
"Blue, Green, Red and Gold don't really have much meaning behind them. I wanted something the Māori girls at school could align with but also anybody. They're such cool wāhine," she told teaomaori.news.
The four new names are Auaha (Gold), Marohi (Green), Māia (Red) and Niwha (Blue). The names represent creativity and innovation, strength and power, resilience and courage, and determination and fortitude, respectively. Each house also has a patron, with painter Rita Angus for Auaha, Olympic and World Champion shot putter Dame Valerie Adams Marohi, Māori rights campaigner Dame Whina Cooper Māia and suffragette Dame Kate Sheppard for Niwha.
At the announcement of the new names, to mark the start of the third term of the school year, "we have made the process bilingual to ensure that we celebrate our Māori language and make the values of te ao Māori visible throughout our kura.
Wāhine toa
"We had the idea of four female leaders to take the names of the houses. However, after talking amongst ourselves, we decided that it was preferable to have these female role models as part of our house identities as wāhine toa or strong women leaders, rather than having their actual names be the names of the houses."
Watson consulted with te reo Māori expert Tā Tīmoti Kāretu to come up with the names, an experience she says was fun and supportive.
"He's become a good family friend of ours. My parents learned te reo Māori from him. So I would take brownies over to his house as a trade-off for his knowledge and wisdom."
Watson says she hopes the change of names will leave a legacy of inclusiveness for Māori and Pasifika students at Napier Girls High School.
"It's really cool to see this new change. There's a leadership day coming up for Māori leaders, which will be good as well."
Having achieved significant change in her final year at school, Watson, who earlier this year was named as one of the recipients of a Te Ara a Kupe Beaton scholarship, allowing her to attend one of the Ivy League universities in the US, says she is now considering staying in Aotearoa to study to continue her journey of learning her taha Māori.
