Marist Alternative Education caters for up to 27 students aged from 13-16 years old who have become disengaged from mainstream education for a variety of reasons. All of our students reside on the North Shore of Auckland and come from a variety of backgrounds.
Our year 9 and 10 students work on Maths, English, Social Studies and the Arts while our year 11 students work on NCEA Level 1 English, Maths, Pathways and Kaupapa Maori. We do some form of exercise every day whether it be working out in the gym, walking around the block or going to the local park for a game of ripper rugby and more recently football.
We start our day with morning hui where issues are discussed, these can be personal, group or involve local news items. This ensures we are in a positive state of mind to embark on our day of learning. We then have three learning blocks with breaks in between. During break times we eat, play card games or basketball and practice our positive social skills with staff and other students. At the end of the day, we carry out our chores. This could be cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, doing the dishes or washing or taking out the rubbish. Everybody gets a turn at all the chores each week.
Before we go home, we have poroporoaki, where the day is reflected on and we take time to acknowledge all the positive mahi we have completed.