Home-A College of many cultures
- Our team
- From an orchard and vineyard to a school
- Our school culture
- Our school song and haka
- Languages in our school
- Cultural fusion
- Taste sensations from Samoa and the Phillipines
- Arts and Culture Week
- National Independence of Samoa Day
- Discovering different types of cultural dances in Waitakere College
- Waitakere College Arts and Cultural Awards
- Our long-awaited school Marae
- 12,000 miles to New Zealand citizenship
- Europe to Australia to a life in the circus
- Massive state to tiny island to green New Zealand
- Afghanistan to New Zealand
- India to New Zealand
- Around the world
- Research process
- Learning outcomes
- References and acknowledgements
Our school culture
The Waitakere College logo
The 'W' is the Waitakere logo. It is worn over our hearts and is very important and loved in Waitakere College. The logo is a symbol of caring, respect and learning. The 'W' represents the bounding hills and deep valleys of the ranges, the sparkling and cascading rivers. The three lines that make up the 'W' represents the three pillars that hold up the school, they stand for the students, the teachers and the families/whanau
Eddie
Waitakere College houses
At first our school had no houses to be in. All classes were mixed with year 9 to year 13. This had some success and more failures, so it had to be changed. All the staff got together and discussed the problem. Then they came up with idea of houses for competition between the students and the teachers. They discussed what they could name the house. They wanted the names to have Māori backgrounds and have a connection to the Waitakere Way. After a long discussion they came up with these names, Manawanui meaning Perseverance, Matauranga meaning Knowledge and Aroha meaning Love.
Each house has a colour to represent it. Manawanui has Gold or Yellow, Matauranga has Green and Aroha have Red. We have animals representing each house. Manawanui has the lion representing strength and perseverance, Matauranga has the Dolphin representing knowledge, and Aroha has Dragon representing Love! There was a big debate choosing these animals because some people wanted to have native New Zealand creatures. Then they eventually came up with those creatures.
The school also wanted to have houses so it would be easier to manage the students. Now we have a House Leader who looks after one house. Each student has their home group written with their house and with their home group teacher initial, for example N/GL.
Aswinan (Ash)
