WelCom November 2023
Margaret Campbell McCauley, Principal, St Peter Chanel School, Motueka
On 8 August, to celebrate St Mary MacKillop’s Feast Day and as part of their Local Histories Curriculum, everyone dressed-up as children and teachers from the 1860s.
St Mary MacKillop’s Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart founded our Motueka school in 1957.
The children enjoyed spending the day learning in the Victorian-school manner, cooking as people did in Victorian times and playing children’s games of the 1860s such as marbles, hopscotch, skipping ropes, hula hoops and knucklebones.
St Mary MacKillop, and the nuns from her order known as the Josephites, founded schools in rural areas in both Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand. Our teachers dressed as Josephite nuns from the 1860s, as Catholic schools at that time were mainly staffed by religious orders.
The staff and school whānau are especially grateful to the Nelson Museum for letting them borrow some of their Victorian clothing and artifacts, and to local Motueka second-hand stores for loaning us items to help the children with their dress-ups.
