Voyaging to Aotearoa: Learning from the First Navigators

All classes rotated around the classrooms working with different teachers and students from within the team

The inquiry asked the big questions: 

• How did people migrate to New Zealand? 

• Who were they? 

• What challenges did they face along the way?

All Tuhuatahi teachers planned for all students to begin learning through talking about migration, how people and animals travel to locate new homes, and why they do it. Students compared the journeys of birds, whales, and humans by exploring the distances travelled and the reasons for their migrations. This could be to find food, warmer weather, safe places to raise offspring, or simply a better lifestyle.

Students used world maps to track where animals travel, noticing the massive distances they would have covered. The kuaka (bar-tailed godwit) travels around 13,000 km every year from Alaska to New Zealand for warmer weather and better food sources. This sparked a curiosity: how did Māori travel across the Pacific Ocean to Aotearoa?

All migrations came with challenges. Students related the idea to their travel experiences and began to imagine what it would be like to prepare for a long journey with only a few essentials. This built their curiosity. How did Māori do it? How did they know where they were going? How did they survive so long on the ocean?

The next steps focused on wayfinding, the traditional knowledge used by Polynesian and Māori navigators to travel across oceans. Students discovered that navigators read and used the stars, sun, birds, clouds, and ocean swells to guide them. Using a star compass (kāpehu whetū), they practised finding directions based on where the sun rises and sets, imagining what it might feel like to follow the stars as they swell to a new land.

Students investigated why Māori and Polynesian voyagers left their islands, looking at the push and pull factors of migration. They learned about droughts, overcrowding, resourcing, and the spirit of adventure. Through role-play and discussion, they imagined how families might have felt when deciding to leave their homes. Jasmyrah, Harvey, and Annaliese made connections to their families’ migration journeys to New Zealand for a better life and to be closer to family.

As the inquiry of work continued, students explored how these journeys connect to the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum, which helps us understand that Māori are the tangata whenua, the first people of the land. Students learned how early Māori settlers used skills to adapt to new environments, build communities, and pass knowledge through pūrakau (stories), carvings, and waiata.

To finish the inquiry, students created fact files and reflection journals about Māori navigation and migration. They shared what they had learned about teamwork, courage, and the importance of protecting and remembering Māori knowledge.

The moments of gold, in this inquiry, were students became connected deeply with history, when they saw how Māori ingenuity, courage, and environmental knowledge shaped Aotearoa’s story.
By the end of the inquiry, students weren’t just building waka, they were building understanding.

This learning helped tamariki see that the history of Aotearoa is a story of journey, discovery, and belonging - one that continues to this day.