Birthday celebration for PM at Ruakaka School

JULIA WADE

Just up the road from Kaipara, a neighbouring primary school recently received a visit from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who went back to school to share her birthday with the students and to present a gift of some much-needed new classrooms.

In return, the children treated their country’s leader to a home-grown morning tea including a birthday cake, and while she blew out the candle, decided with their collective wisdom to up the amused PM’s age – by a few decades.

Accompanied by associate education minister Kelvin Davis, Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime and Whangarei MP Emily Henderson, Ardern called in at Ruakaka Primary School on July 26 on her 41st birthday, to announce to staff, students and gathered parents that the school will be gaining two extra classrooms under the Government’s ‘Short Term Roll Growth’, a $100 million initiative to get more classrooms into NZ’s bulging-roll schools.

The PM also announced the first schools to benefit from a $150 million top-up for ‘shovel ready school property projects’.

“We have committed to ensuring all schools have access to quality learning environments and this is us delivering on that promise,” Ardern said. “All children deserve a suitable classroom to learn in and it is our responsibility to ensure they have that so they can get the best possible education opportunities.”

With Ruakaka School’s current roll of 332 students expected to blossom to 360 by the end of the year, and the 63 staff not having a room to call their own as well as no library, naturally principal Marilyn Dunn has welcomed the news.

“Our old staffroom is being used for our ‘Food in Schools’ programme and is far too small for our staff anyway, and for the past two years the library has had a class in it, so the new classes will make a significant difference to flexibility and stress levels!” she says. “We also took the opportunity to show Jacinda the ‘Food in Schools’ programme in action. She was very impressed and loved the fact that we are providing the lunches ourselves and are able to employ five whanau members to run it.”

As the lunch programme is locally managed, Dunn says it gives the school flexibility with menus to include items that children will eat, timing of serving lunches and making sure quantities are accurate each day.

“Our children love the Food in Schools and we have a lot less waste now than we did in the beginning as the children get used to the food.”

As it was Ardern’s birthday, students from the school’s ‘Garden to Table’ programme – where children learn to plant, harvest and cook vegetables and fruit – prepared a special morning tea including a birthday cake complete with a single candle.

Students also gifted the PM a jar of honey from the school’s beehives and new entrants made her daughter Neve, a korawai (cloak]. Curious about the age of their country’s leader, and after prompting by Ardern to guess, a decision she undoubtedly regretted, the children decided their PM was probably a grand old age of 62. Amused, Ardern later admitted that she has ‘now learnt not to ask children to guess how old you are’, and thanked Ruakaka School ‘for a beautiful visit’.

All of the children’s efforts were well-received by the PM and her entourage Dunn says.

“We sang happy birthday to her and she cut up her birthday cake to share with the children who helped make it. Jacinda was so lovely with the children and had photos with so many people, staff included!” she says. “It was a wonderful experience for us all and we were still buzzing the next day!”

3 Jacinda with Ruakaka Primary principal Marilyn Dunn.

4 Lots of laughs when the children decided their PM was probably around 62!

6 The Prime minister addresses the school and guests.

7 Jacinda Ardern goes back to school, with a promise of more classrooms.

All children deserve a suitable classroom to learn in and it is our responsibility to ensure they have that.