When I first came to New Zealand in 2005 Catriona was at Pre-School (Kindergarten or Nursery School). On her fifth birthday in 2006 she graduated to
Puketapu School and joined her three brothers. I was here for that. Her brothers have left for Napier Boys High and, at this moment her oldest brother has left that school and just arrived in Switzerland and started work under the Eiger for his gap year before Uni. Now aged eleven Catriona leaves Puketapu School in a couple of days (she could actually stay on for another two years but she's going to another school as a weekly boarder). I will have been to every Puketapu Prize-giving whilst she has been at the school. Tonight was the last one I will attend and I am proud and thrilled to be able to say that I was there.
I would just say that Puketapu School (of which Wendy is a Trustee) is a wonderful school in its environment, educational and socio-economic contexts. It makes me realise just how privileged we are to live here.
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| The school Kapa Haka performance |
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| The grass is banked so you can't see the children and parents in front of me: hundreds attended on a very warm evening. |
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| Three murals, the school band's drums and the School cups |
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| The younger pupils perform a song and dance routine |
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| I don't recall any of my Prep School teachers looking like this |
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| or dressing like this - I could show you my school photos! |
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| These classes made a whole orchestra from instruments they had made: this is just a few. The performance was awesome. |
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| The school Dux. Says it all really. (As an aside only, I suspect, in New Zealand would you see affluent children going barefoot to the school prizegiving because it's just a normal thing to do). |
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| This is the traditional reminisce by the Year Eight leavers who tell the world some of the amusing (and embarrassing) things they recall about their teachers and fellow pupils over their years at the school. |
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Nice that you've been able to follow Catriona like that. I never heard the word "dux" before I think. (Looked it up so now I know it means top pupil in a class or school) I don't think there were ever prize-givings quite like that in my school. At least not with prizes in the form of cups.
ReplyDeleteThe School Prize-giving was an important event at my Grammar School although not one that I really took much interest in because I really did not like school.
DeleteThe school looks so neat and well organized - I like neat and well organized! As for the half-naked children (there are at least two bare-chested boys in the firt picture, I think), that would seem very much out of place at any German school's prize ceremony, no matter the temperature of the day. Same goes for attending such things barefooted. I would have loved it as a child, but it simply wasn't done here.
ReplyDeleteOne of my prep school teachers was a pretty, long-legged blonde who loved wearing pink flowery summer dresses. Those were the 70s, when many women wore very short skirts, and she could well afford them. I always thought she looked a bit like one of my barbies.
It's a very well run, organised and neat school (as schools go) and I think I might even have enjoyed going to school if my school had been like that. The boys are bare-chested because they are involved in the Kapa Haka and that is traditional (regardless of the weather!). New Zealanders frequently go barefoot and I have posted about it on several occasions. I do not think, though, that I have told the story on this blog of sitting in a cafe when a young lady immaculately dressed in a summer frock with a hat and handbag who, almost anywhere else in the world on a fashionable (well the nearest Napier has to fashionable) City street would be in high heels or immaculate pumps was, in fact, barefoot. I might see if I can find a school photo of my teachers.
DeleteAhh, the end of an era for you, Graham. And another to look forward to next year. Hasn't Catriona grown? Why do they have to keep doing that?
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm looking forward to her new school. It is, by all accounts, among the best the Country has to offer. I hope she makes the most of it.
DeleteI didn't know what dux is, but then read Dawn Treader's comment; nice school, environment and ceremony.
ReplyDeleteI think, Terra, that it may be borrowed from Scotland (where I am, of course, used to it) because it is not used in England (where I went to school). I see from Wikipedia that it is used in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Iceland. I wonder why Iceland - I don't think it has any particular Scottish or Roman history.
DeleteOh, I love her necklace and white dress. I know you didn't mean this for a fashion post, but I don't get out much, much less to New Zealand so it was interesting to me to see the fashion.
ReplyDeleteI found the kids to be very stylish too. I wish that trend would catch on here, even casual, they look nice and neat.
Kay, clothes in New Zealand seem to me to be so varied and there doesn't seem to be a norm for fashion. But I'm an ordinary man and there may be NZ ladies out there who can define NZ fashion for me. The one thing I can say is that generally speaking people are very informal here. At the ballet in a provincial theatre for example I wore a cream linen jacket and dark lightweight trousers and an open-neck pink shirt and was amongst the most formally dressed there. It is not unusual to see the range going from a few tuxes to T-shirts and jandals. The beauty is that no one feels out of place because no one is out of place.
DeleteLooks like a fun time. My teachers didn't dress like that either. No dress was ever above the knee. I remember in 7th grade when we would wear miniskirts and the teachers would measure with a ruler how far above the knee our hems were. Ha!
ReplyDeleteLisa, it was a fun time for all the pupils and the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends who were there being proud.
DeleteI thoroughly enjoyed this post....loved seeing the kids having a fun evening....a down-to-earth laid back graduation with no pomp and circumstance, which they have now introduced into the prep/elementary schools here with gowns and caps (all US-imported culture).
ReplyDeleteI would have enjoyed going to that school because I LOVE walking around bare-footed.
Thanks Virginia. Even I could have enjoyed a school like that. It's quite funny that I've got used to wearing either jandals or bare feet in my house in Scotland. People think it's a little quaint or eccentric. Perhaps it is.....there.
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