School Staff at Matihetihe have a goal of ensuring if any food at school is sold, it needs to be healthy and good for their students.

This term the school cut out the selling of packaged food and re-introduced cooking classes back into the school curriculum which led to the students preparing cooked meals (for all students and staff to enjoy on certain days of the week) – this led to packaged food sales stopping altogether.

The cooking classes have been well received by staff and students and this is just one step that they have invested in towards achieving their goal. Other steps include re-establishing the school gardens and creating a school cookbook to share.

Offers from community members have been well received as a way for those with knowledge to give back to the younger generation to help extend their gardening learning. The maintenance of the school gardens is important for suitability and sustainability - the school have a bit of a plan for 2020 and have identified students that have expressed a desire to use vegetables that they have grown in their cooking classes.  The school is currently scoping possible funding sources and resources from local business/providers in the area that can support.

With the school being remote and located on the edge of the west coast in Hokianga, allows the school a huge area to fish and collect kaimoana from. There has been so much knowledge shared from within the community around fishing, diving and preparing of kaimoana for eating – all of which has been shared with students and linked into their cooking classes. The school is exploring how they can extend on this and add some active learning into this aspect of the curriculum e.g.  there is a level of physical activity involved in fishing and collecting kaimoana and preparing meals together (which includes harvesting their vegetables).

School Principal Linda Rudolph comments by saying “we did resort back to selling packaged food and the food act made it look like it was too hard to sell healthy kai. But the kids expressed how much they were missing cooking classes and working together to prepare kai, so we planned, actioned it and here we are, and they love it. Having the beach on our doorstep is also great as we have a few dads, uncles and male staff members that can upskill our students in all of those areas related to kaimoana”

We look forward to the progress of Te Kura o Matihetihe with their healthy goals for 2020 and sharing more stories of the student and school successes.