Four Rotorua students will take the lead on Tuesday to celebrate te reo Māori with their peers.
This comes as the Māori Language Commission is calling on all New Zealanders to take part in a Māori Language Moment in line with Te Wiki o te reo Māori.
The commission is hoping two million people will join the movement by speaking, singing and celebrating te reo at 12pm tomorrow.
Malfroy School students James Ngatai, 7, Kataraina Anderson, 6, Keira-Lee Moke, 7, and Julius Ngare-Lawson, 9, were gearing up to give a whaikōrero (formal speech) to the entire school.
"That will include a pepeha [introduction], then they will talk about themselves all in te reo Māori," said school senior team leader Teina Taute.
Seven classes would come together in the school hall, while the other classes would be watching over Zoom due to alert level 2 restrictions.
More than 300 students would then sing waiata.
"To celebrate this, we include the whole school," Taute said.
"But we don't just do it for Māori Language Week, we do it for lots of different things."
She said the group set a "good example" for other Malfroy School students.
"They are very excited, they feel as though they have been chosen to lead," she said.
"It is a good example for our other students from our mainstream classes to see what they can achieve with a little bit of practice."
Taute said school staff were "really open" to practising te reo and using it in the classroom, with several taking Māori language classes.
"The more practice our teachers do, the better it is for our tamariki. Any bit of reo that a teacher uses can only build confidence, and it also gives our mainstream students a chance to practice it as well," she said.
"They need to know who they are and where they come from. And if we show some cultural responsiveness towards their culture then it makes our relationship even stronger."
As of 2pm on Friday, there had been 7509 registrations for the virtual event consisting of 1699 individuals and 5874 organisations in the Bay of Plenty.
Māori Language Commission chief executive Ngahiwi Apanui said te reo Māori was still endangered and needed to be protected.
"The same way we protect our people: because like our families, te reo is our taonga," she said.
This year the commission was hoping to see two million New Zealanders celebrate join the movement.
"We also want to set the world record for people speaking and celebrating an endangered, indigenous language at the same time. Last year more than 1 million people joined us for our Māori Language Moment."
Participants would be able to celebrate te reo from wherever they were, in whatever way they wished.
And the commission would be registering its world record attempt with the Guinness Book of World Records.
Māori Language Commissioner professor Rawinia Higgins said it took one generation to lose a language, and three to get it back.
"If we are to safeguard te reo we need 1 million speakers by 2040.
"A key contributor to the death of a language is societal attitudes.
"It is about us standing together as New Zealanders and saying we want to protect our language for future generations because te reo is the language of our nation."
Kia ora koutou, dear readers. As Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori 2021 gets under way you will notice something a little different about the Rotorua Daily Post. While in recent years we've changed our masthead to mark the week, this year we've made a long-term change instead, introducing the te reo name Te Māngai Nui to the front page, for this week and beyond.
The phrase Te Māngai Nui translates to the voice of the people as māngai is another word for mouth, particularly in the Te Arawa rohe.
Throughout this week the Rotorua Daily Post - Te Māngai Nui - will look at the strength and growth of te reo and meet those who make it part of their everyday lives as we mark Te Wiki.
Ngā mihi,
The Rotorua Daily Post team