{"id":559058,"date":"2026-08-04T20:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559058\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:48:09","slug":"rotokawa-school-wins-national-recognition-for-ai-curriculum-bot-on-the-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559058\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotokawa School wins national recognition for AI curriculum bot \u2013 On The Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The school was nominated for the Ministry of Education\u2019s New Zealand Education Excellence Awards and was one of five primary schools recognised for excellence in educational leadership. <\/p>\n

Rotokawa School received a commendation for innovative integration of artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n

It was the only Bay of Plenty school recognised in this year\u2019s awards.<\/p>\n

Principal Regan Williams said it was fantastic recognition for the driving force of the project, deputy principal Christina Roberts, and the staff for creating something that had been years in the making.<\/p>\n

Since signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Ng\u0101ti Uenukukopako in 2018, the school has worked closely with the local iwi to integrate its history and stories into the curriculum.<\/p>\n

Sixteen different stories have been \u201cgifted\u201d to the school for this purpose.<\/p>\n

How does it work?<\/p>\n

Williams said they created the bot through ChatGPT and loaded it with all the local curriculum documents, including the iwi stories in English and M\u0101ori, the school\u2019s vision, mission and strategic goals.<\/p>\n

Williams said they also added the revised New Zealand curriculum and all the relevant national documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that all those documents are in that bot, that\u2019s all it will draw from when you put in a prompt for what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Receiving a New Zealand Education Excellence Awards commendation from Ministry of Education representative Debbie Holmes (centre) are Rotokawa School deputy principal Christina Roberts (left) and principal Regan Williams. Photo \/ Kelly Makiha<\/p>\n

He said it meant their resources were derived from what they put in, rather than the wider internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat that\u2019s done is it\u2019s made it consistent for all the teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts said it was important for the hap\u016b, too, because they wanted their stories told in their way.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, Hinemoa and Tut\u0101nekai is told in several different ways but from us feeding it, it is told in the mana whenua\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Rotokawa School has been recognised nationally for its innovative use of AI. Photo \/ Kelly Makiha<\/p>\n

Teachers can find information to suit different levels of learning.<\/p>\n

Roberts said the same story could be produced for a Year 1 or Year 6 class, with the bot differentiating the levels of difficulty. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt can pull a lesson plan, models of writing, resources, assessment, all around that one story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The bot\u2019s success<\/p>\n

Williams said all teachers used the bot for their lessons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe success is that all of our teachers and staff are on board with what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts said everyone was able to use the bot efficiently, from new graduates through to older members of staff.<\/p>\n

She said it was a massive leap for some, with one staff member having started their teaching career many years ago when computers were only used to type assignments.<\/p>\n

She said the curriculum had changed very much in recent years, but the local stories stayed the same.<\/p>\n

Roberts said the bot freed up teachers to be more creative and hands-on because they no longer needed to go and find the resources they needed.<\/p>\n

\" Rotokawa School has been recognised with a national award for its innovative use of AI. Photo \/ Kelly Makiha<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where the world is heading, and instead of being reactive we are being proactive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ministry of Education representative Debbie Holmes popped out to Rotokawa School last week to present the staff with their award.<\/p>\n

She said it was \u201cexciting to see\u201d what the school was achieving and congratulated staff for their innovation.<\/p>\n

Kelly Makiha<\/a> is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The school was nominated for the Ministry of Education\u2019s New Zealand Education Excellence Awards and was one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,126397,16894,2082,3556,111,139,69,90,31340,16181,4062,145,223,810,6202],"class_list":["post-559058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bot","tag-curriculum","tag-for","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-recognition","tag-rotokawa","tag-school","tag-technology","tag-the","tag-up","tag-wins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}