Tauranga teacher aide develops visual health programme for Western Bay schools

Pillans Point School teacher aide Nikki Wilson and students, from left, Eva Needham, 10, and Libby Ward, 11, with the Hauora Pebbles kit. Photo / George Novak

Nikki Wilson knows some children retain information better when they can visualise what they are learning.

And this applies to their own well-being.

She has created the Hauora Pebble Programme to provide students with a 3D model to complement the health module of their school curriculum. The programme is designed around the Māori health model, te whare tapa whā, which recognises the importance of balancing the different aspect of well-being and understanding how each interconnects.

Those wellbeing dimensions included taha hinengaro (mental and emotional), taha wairua (spiritual), taha tinana (physical), taha whānau (social). Wilson said when one area was not in balance, a person's whole wellbeing was negatively impacted.

Wilson, who has 19 years experience in teaching hauora - a Māori view of health - as a health and physical education teacher at secondary schools, learned the model at teachers' training college.

She said it was her "favourite health model".

Now a teacher aide at Tauranga's Pillans Point Primary School, she said her programme illustrated that model, making it clearer for children of all ages to follow.

And from next year, primary schools throughout the Western Bay of Plenty will be able to incorporate the programme for their students.

Wilson developed the programme during the Covid-19 lockdown after being inspired by a creative and determined student she had been working with, who had different needs, to ensure they achieved to their full potential.

Wilson believes students struggle to reach their potential if they are dealing with mental, emotional, spiritual, physical or social health challenges because it affects their ability to concentrate.

The programme includes a kit that features a whare, four kete, pebble board cards, coloured cards, a template and more than 50 pebbles. The kit provides students with a clear way to illustrate key aspects that contribute to a person's total wellbeing.

She said it's "basically a kit to help illustrate" what hauora, putting pebbles into their kete to show what they've done to look after the four dimensions of their overall wellbeing.

And from 2021, other schools will be able to utilise the programme as well.

Last month, Wilson presented the programme to the Mackay Strathnaver Trust, a Bay of Plenty-based charitable trust that focuses on equipment donations in the Tauranga region, to see if she could seek funding that would allow that to happen.

Former teacher Andree Withington, a financial trustee of the trust, said she was impressed by the Hauora Pebble Programme and wished something similar was available when she was teaching.

She said the trust saw the value in having it available to schools and would help create 50 kits to be sent out to schools in Tauranga, Te Puke and Katikati.

Next week the kits will start being made up to be sent out by the end of the year.

From February next year, it will be trialled in schools during the year, before being reviewed in December 2021 and further planning for 2022.

Ultimately, Wilson said she would love to see her programme offered at all primary schools throughout New Zealand.