WelCom December 2023
Leah Marris, Principal, St Canice’s School
St Canice’s School Westport won the West Coast Primary Schools Kapahaka competition, hosted this year by Reefton Area School, in September.
We took out the competitive whakaeke (opening song); waiata tira (choral); haka; whakawatea (finishing song); male lead – and we were the overall winners of the primary section to make us the 2023 Te Tai Potuini (West Coast) Kapahaka champions.
We have 69 students in our rōpū. However, for competition we took 35. We have been practising for three years as Covid-19 has taken a couple of performances out and we didn’t attend the festival day in Hokitika last year.
Our school does full school kapahaka in Term 1 every year and then tamariki choose to enter into our weekly practises for Term 2. In Term 3, we have a couple of long practises where we fine tune our stage performance.
It all came together on stage. Our leaders were stunning, our voices sweet and our energy on point! It was awesome. They all knew when they came off the stage they had given it their all.
The best part of the day was 680 tamariki and rangatahi from across Te Tai Poutini being all together to celebrate all things Māori. Reefton Area School and all involved in organising the day provided an amazing opportunity come together as a hāpori of performers, to share all of their hard mahi and to celebrate the wonderful things going on across kura on the West Coast.
