2019 Te Atatū Kokiri Tahi – Community of Learning Future Pathways Expo

Thursday, 8 August was a truly inspiring day. Rutherford College proudly hosted the first Te Atatū Kokiri Tahi – Community of Learning Future Pathways Expo.

The focus for the Expo was “Celebrate your strengths and make them stronger because they are your doorways to the future”. We hope that the expo gave students an opportunity to embrace their strengths and encouraged them to use this lens when looking forward to their futures.

It was a huge event, involving 29 exhibitors and three schools. Over the course of the day, Year 8, 9 and 10 students had the opportunity to interact with training providers and employers in fields ranging from tourism and health to technology and primary industries.

The day began dramatically with the Police Helicopter landing on the Gym parking lot. Following this, Rutherford Year 9s, supported by their peer mentors from Year 12, had approximately an hour and a half to make their way through the seven zones of exhibitors.

The Year 9s had scarcely finished when the Year 8s from Rangeview Intermediate arrived. The Rangeview students were buddied with some Year 10 students, who guided them through the exhibits.

We were lucky enough to have a demonstration from the Police Dog Handlers in the middle of the day, which both Rangeview and Te Atatū Intermediate were able to watch.

Following this, it was Te Atatū Intermediate’s turn to interact with exhibitors, supported by Year 10 buddies, and finally the whole of Year 10 was able to have their turn.

Some of the highlights of the day: finding our celebrity doppelganger with Connexis, gaming with Game Tan, interacting with Soul Machine’s digital humans, walking through the WDHB’s inflatable bowel, trying out NZ Defense’s plane, and of course the large number of students sporting realistic-looking wounds, scrapes and bruises courtesy of Screen Auckland’s makeup team.

The CoL team would like to thank all those who contributed to make the day so memorable: the Ministry of Education, the exhibitors, staff at all three schools for the preparation work ahead of the day, the Year 10 leaders and Year 12 Peer Mentors, the PE & Health Department for accommodating us, and everyone who got involved to help throughout the day.

We are so grateful to our Rutherford whanāu – students as well as staff – who make visitors to our school welcome, and who see a job that needs doing and muck in.