Whole School Kapa Haka

This year sees the entire Frankley School (students, all staff, community) take part in a weekly Kapa haka session.  Whaea Mata leads us into Te Ao Māori through te reo and waiata.  Our first session, Matapaepae was blown away by how much we had practised for Mr Ritai's Poroporoaki and that we knew the lyrics to our waiata so well.

These were little bits of knowledge that Whaea Mata told us to remember...

• In Taranaki, we say the "h" sound as a silent letter, e.g. "whakapono" is said wa-car-poor-naw.
• We learnt about the boundaries of Te Ati Awa iwi, spreading out between Omata, Stratford and Urenui.
• We talked about the vowel sounds and that if we mispronounce them, the words can have a totally different meaning.

Commands that we learnt:

• Ki raro - hands down at your side
• Ki a wiri - gently shake hands
• Hope - hands on hips, boys fingers spread, girls in a closed fist.