Tuahiwi Marae

It felt so good passing, because every time you walk past a teacher that taught you, they’d always be like: “So good to see that you guys passed and that you decided to come back to school.” It just feels great hearing them say that.

I feel proud as a Māori when success comes through and you hear: “Oh, it’s the Māori students. They’re the ones passing.” Māori students are excelling at our school.

It means there’s hope for Māori to become something more than everyone’s stereotypes. It brings hope just to see that we can actually make a difference.

Not a lot of Māori kids have actually made it to the senior levels in our school. I think people are scared of failure, because they’d feel ashamed. But failure, you can learn from it. It’s nothing bad. Just push yourself. Who cares if you only get Achieved? At least it’s something. So be proud of yourself, and have the mana. Actually, be the Māori kid that gets to the senior level and passes. It makes you feel really good about yourself.

When you’re a Māori and you achieve, it’s amazing because quite a lot of Māori get underestimated. For Māori to show people our capabilities, what we can do, it’s quite an amazing feeling. When other Māori see our achievements, they want to be just like us, so they push for it as well.

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The first day we did introductions, it felt great to stand up and say my mihimihi in Māori, especially knowing that I was the only one there from my school. I felt a bit nervous, but I still had the guts to do it, and I felt great saying it. It was just something I won’t forget. My parents were so proud of me.

I don’t think it should be any different achieving success as Māori as it is for other cultures, but it is. Because you have to be able to achieve - but still be able to stay true to being Māori.

You get those Māori out there that are top of the top and they can go anywhere in life.

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We do get support from our parents and stuff. But it’s getting encouraged by your own peers, and giving encouragement to people your own age. It shows that we’re not just young teenagers who just like to muck around.

Sometimes the people that help you succeed are the people that don’t really realise that they’re doing it. Like people that you look up to as role models so that you want to emulate what they’re doing. It gives you courage to be better than what is expected of you.

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It’s perseverance. Māori students don’t show off in the school, like, “Oh, I’m the greatest person. I’m the man at doing whatever I do.” They’re just real. They do a lot of background work. Behind everything they’re doing a lot of hard work, but they never show that when they get awarded for it. They never show off, or they never show that they’re struggling. Quiet, working hard, doing all those little things so that they can get something big out of it.

If you’re getting put down all the time, you have to look on the bright side and know that you’re better than those people. If you’re not happy with yourself, then how are you going to get anywhere in life? There’s a lot of achievement coming from our school now.

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It’s pretty easy talking to all the teachers and they’re all really helpful. They just push you and they tell you when you’re not doing what you should be. They’ve really helped me a lot. You realise that you actually do need these credits if you want to go far in school. This year has been a really good year, and I’m looking forward to next year.

At the start of the year I didn’t really feel confident because I wasn’t getting credits or anything. In class I was always the quiet one and my science teacher recognised it. He helped me. He just pushed me to get extra credits, and that was big.

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