I hope the Principal took the opportunity to enforce to the student that Moko are earned by deeds and actions and most certainly are not decoration whether scribbled on with a Marker pen or etched on as is the case with so many Maori these days. Particularly Maori women.
Mrspdm and I had an 80 year old or thereabouts Maori lady as a neighbour and very good friend for a few years and she was adamant on that matter and considered it a lack of respect when she saw young people in particular adorned by unearned Moko.
Here is the Herald story which features the boys mother going `full bore’ against the schools decision and I have no doubt from the tenor of the writing that the Herald is in support of she and her son as well.:
Mount Albert Grammar accused of ‘discrimination’ after Māori student told to scrub off tā moko design
Joel Kulasingham
Journalist·NZ Herald·
4 Tuesday, August 4, 2026
One of New Zealand’s largest schools has been accused of discrimination after a Māori student was required to cover his tā moko – and earlier told to scrub a drawn-on version of the design from his arm.
The mother of a Year 12 student at Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland says her son was told to “go to the bathroom and scrub it off” when he first had his tā moko design drawn on his arm, despite the school being informed beforehand.
“It was really upsetting for him,” she said.
Mount Albert Grammar’s headmaster told the Herald he had no knowledge of the incident and tā moko is “currently under consideration” by the school’s “Māori Parent Committee”.
Her son (Ngāpuhi), who the Herald has agreed not to name, got the traditional Māori tattoo – symbolising iwi, whakapapa and personal identity – when he turned 16 last year.
The mum said Mount Albert Grammar has a strict tattoo policy, with no exceptions for tā moko.
“The rule is that you have to cover it up with a sleeve and you get detention if it’s showing at all,” she said.
“What I tried to raise with the school was that it should be different for Māori students when they get tā moko because it’s a birthright, it’s a cultural expression.
“They haven’t wanted to budge with that.”
She said her request to meet with the school’s principal to discuss the issue was declined.
Mount Albert Grammar headmaster Patrick Drumm told the Herald he had “no knowledge of the incident”.
“Our current uniform policy has been in place for many years and is regularly reviewed and sometimes amended through a consultation process with the board of trustees,” he said.
“We are a diverse community and are committed to ensuring students enjoy a sense of belonging at Mount Albert Grammar. Our school uniform rules are clear and every family agrees to these on enrolment into the school.”
Drumm said tā moko was “currently under consideration” by the school’s rūnanga (Māori Parent Committee), which “provides strategic advice to the school around te ao Māori”.
“Members of the rūnanga sit as elected trustees on our school board and are supportive of a considered process when requests for modifications of uniform are made. This process has worked very well for the school to date with taonga and other requests.
“My understanding is that tā moko is currently under consideration by our rūnanga with a recommendation coming to the board in the near future.”
The mum said it was “encouraging” that the school is considering changing its policy around tā moko.
However, former and current Māori students still deserve “acknowledgment or even apology for the discrimination they have experienced”.
She said it’s been a “constant battle” throughout her son’s years at Mount Albert Grammar to recognise things of “cultural significance” for tāngata whenua.
“It makes the Māori students feel like their culture is not okay, that the school doesn’t have any room for it to belong, that it’s bad, it’s wrong. It’s really damaging identity-wise.”
“A lot of the Māori and Pasifika students have a particular haircut. It’s a way of expressing your cultural identity, in a way that makes you feel proud and it’s an unspoken connection between the students.”
In te ao Māori, hair and the head are considered tapu (sacred), and said to hold a person’s mana.
The mum said the school threatened to stop her son from sitting his NCEA exams last year over his hairstyle: colloquially known as a rat’s tail.
She said her son was pulled from class at the start of this year and told he couldn’t return unless he cut his hair.
“Eventually he did feel like his hand was forced,” she said.
“I’m very respectful of school rules and students presenting themselves in a professional way. I totally get that. But these are things that are culturally significant for tāngata whenua.
“So I take great offence to their rules in that regard.”
She hopes the school also extends any review of uniform rules to include hair.
She said it was important for her son, who has faced racial discrimination outside school, to feel “support and belonging” at school.
In 2021, Westlake Boys High School amended its uniform policy to allow tā moko and taonga Māori after two students were reportedly “deeply hurt” when asked to hide their tā moko.
I [pdm] Say
Hold your ground Mount Albert Grammar – you are in the right on this one!!
If you back down the next thing will be this adorning your students bodies:
Joel Kulasingham
Journalist·NZ Herald·
4 Tuesday, August 4, 2026
One of New Zealand’s largest schools has been accused of discrimination after a Māori student was required to cover his tā moko – and earlier told to scrub a drawn-on version of the design from his arm.
The mother of a Year 12 student at Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland says her son was told to “go to the bathroom and scrub it off” when he first had his tā moko design drawn on his arm, despite the school being informed beforehand.
“It was really upsetting for him,” she said.
Mount Albert Grammar’s headmaster told the Herald he had no knowledge of the incident and tā moko is “currently under consideration” by the school’s “Māori Parent Committee”.
Her son (Ngāpuhi), who the Herald has agreed not to name, got the traditional Māori tattoo – symbolising iwi, whakapapa and personal identity – when he turned 16 last year.
The mum said Mount Albert Grammar has a strict tattoo policy, with no exceptions for tā moko.
“The rule is that you have to cover it up with a sleeve and you get detention if it’s showing at all,” she said.
“What I tried to raise with the school was that it should be different for Māori students when they get tā moko because it’s a birthright, it’s a cultural expression.
“They haven’t wanted to budge with that.”
She said her request to meet with the school’s principal to discuss the issue was declined.
Mount Albert Grammar headmaster Patrick Drumm told the Herald he had “no knowledge of the incident”.
“Our current uniform policy has been in place for many years and is regularly reviewed and sometimes amended through a consultation process with the board of trustees,” he said.
“We are a diverse community and are committed to ensuring students enjoy a sense of belonging at Mount Albert Grammar. Our school uniform rules are clear and every family agrees to these on enrolment into the school.”
Drumm said tā moko was “currently under consideration” by the school’s rūnanga (Māori Parent Committee), which “provides strategic advice to the school around te ao Māori”.
“Members of the rūnanga sit as elected trustees on our school board and are supportive of a considered process when requests for modifications of uniform are made. This process has worked very well for the school to date with taonga and other requests.
“My understanding is that tā moko is currently under consideration by our rūnanga with a recommendation coming to the board in the near future.”
The mum said it was “encouraging” that the school is considering changing its policy around tā moko.
However, former and current Māori students still deserve “acknowledgment or even apology for the discrimination they have experienced”.
She said it’s been a “constant battle” throughout her son’s years at Mount Albert Grammar to recognise things of “cultural significance” for tāngata whenua.
“It makes the Māori students feel like their culture is not okay, that the school doesn’t have any room for it to belong, that it’s bad, it’s wrong. It’s really damaging identity-wise.”
“A lot of the Māori and Pasifika students have a particular haircut. It’s a way of expressing your cultural identity, in a way that makes you feel proud and it’s an unspoken connection between the students.”
In te ao Māori, hair and the head are considered tapu (sacred), and said to hold a person’s mana.
The mum said the school threatened to stop her son from sitting his NCEA exams last year over his hairstyle: colloquially known as a rat’s tail.
She said her son was pulled from class at the start of this year and told he couldn’t return unless he cut his hair.
“Eventually he did feel like his hand was forced,” she said.
“I’m very respectful of school rules and students presenting themselves in a professional way. I totally get that. But these are things that are culturally significant for tāngata whenua.
“So I take great offence to their rules in that regard.”
She hopes the school also extends any review of uniform rules to include hair.
She said it was important for her son, who has faced racial discrimination outside school, to feel “support and belonging” at school.
In 2021, Westlake Boys High School amended its uniform policy to allow tā moko and taonga Māori after two students were reportedly “deeply hurt” when asked to hide their tā moko.
I [pdm] Say
Hold your ground Mount Albert Grammar – you are in the right on this one!!
If you back down the next thing will be this adorning your students bodies:
8 comments:
Of course the school will capitulate! Everybody needs to be proud of their culture, whose culture is of course sanitized so that all cultures are great with worthy achievements (except for any non indigenous cultures). And identity is all important and defines who you are! Nothing else matters!
One goes to school to be educated, not to express ones' cultural identity. A school is a community with rules and values and expects conformity to those, hence a uniform to demonstrate uniformity. Anyone who does not wish to meet these expectations should go elsewhere, either another school or out into the wider community where self-expression is generally better tolerated. With regard to Mt Albert Grammar, and certainly other schools, they have encouraged things like hakas and Polynesian clubs so make a rod for their own backs allowing the expression of a minority culture to the exclusion of others it must be said. Thus, they can't complain when some activist student and their parents try it on.
When I was a child in the 1950s, a schoolmate, who lived with his grandmother, used to attend the same church services as we did.
His grandmother was a little old lady, probably closer to 80 than 70 (so born in 19c), and she had a chin tattoo. We grew up in an area where many Maori lived at the time, and she was the only woman we ever saw with such a tattoo. I mentioned this to a young family member (very well-versed in NZ history) who remarked that she must have been a woman of rank and achievement, to have earned such an honour. Indeed.
Nowadays, it appears that they're a marker only of identity: nothing at all to do with rank or achievement.
In my view, tattoos, no matter their provenance, are ugly. The school is within its rights to ban them, no matter who wants to have them. If Maori children want to put this stuff on their bodies, they can wait until they leave school.
I suppose that the school will be intimidated into acceding to this Maori stuff. That being so, I can't see how it will be able to ban them for any pupils. It'll be open slather.
"...her son, who has faced racial discrimination outside school..."
I call bollocks on this. There isn't any racial discrimination in NZ. Maybe somebody was mean to him, called him names? Dear me....welcome to the real world! Name-calling isn't racism, nor is it racial discrimination
Typical problem that continues to plague NZ is that Maori think they are so special that laws needn't apply to them and the world needs to fit in with them -even while they benefit from every invention and discovery they never ever had starting from the wheel and the bronze age.
The mother ought to have known the rules and failed to obey them. Could they exercise their culture within the rules? Yes. Did they choose to? No. Are they trying to dodge the consequences? Of course, because they think they are above the law and civil society.
Tattoos especially those that were once earned and of cultural significance have lost their meaning.
It is quite sad but true.
Most professional sports in the combative arena are full of painted jocks.
Presently and not that long ago, any old slapper can and did get a tattoo and claim to be worthy. Even if their social and cultural bearing and dignity suggested otherwise.
You can't question the wearer.
Only wryly smile inwardly to yourself at the irony.
"I hope the Principal took the opportunity to enforce to the student that Moko are earned by deeds and actions and most certainly are not decoration whether scribbled on with a Marker pen or etched on as is the case with so many Maori these days. Particularly Maori women.
Mrspdm and I had an 80 year old or thereabouts Maori lady as a neighbour and very good friend for a few years and she was adamant on that matter and considered it a lack of respect when she saw young people in particular adorned by unearned Moko."
She's not the only one
At least the mother is teaching her son the Maori culture of demanding the world owes them. That they are all just victims of others and responsibility is for others.
CXH: Responsibility is an obligation of every culture. It complements rights This is a fact. Why is any one culture different in this regard?
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