Auckland primary school completes winning mural

Oranga Primary School, located in Auckland’s One Tree Hill, has completed their mural ‘The Heart of the Forest’, as one of ten winners in this year’s Keep New Zealand Beautiful Resene Wall Worthy Competition.

The Resene Wall Worthy Competition gives youth groups, schools and ECEs from across the country the opportunity to paint a mural with an environmental theme or message, to help beautify an area at their school or in their local community.

The Oranga Primary School mural replaces an existing mural on the school’s hall and celebrates Aotearoa’s unique biodiversity with images of native New Zealand flora and fauna including; kōwhai , nīkau, totara and pōhutukawa trees, harakeke as well as pīwakawaka, tūī, kererū and tuatara.

Leading the project was teacher Lynley Kemp who says the old mural was in poor condition and most students had no connection to it.

“The new mural celebrates the hope the students have for conserving and restoring native New Zealand species. The mural represents a New Zealand forest before the introduction of predators – in one student’s words ‘Please bring back the New Zealand my ancestors once knew’. Many of the plants and animals have been drawn on adjacent panels to represent the connectedness of everything in the environment.”

A team of 20 students from Year 4-Year 6 were responsible for the design and painting of the mural onto five panels which were then affixed to the school hall. 

“We are absolutely thrilled with the result! It was such a fun way to get the students involved in beautifying the school. There are plans to add more art around the mural next year.”

About the Resene Wall Worthy Competition

The Resene Wall Worthy Competition, which is part of Keep New Zealand Beautiful’s Paint New Zealand Beautiful programme, gives early childhood centres, schools and youth groups the chance to express themselves by communicating an environmental or conservation theme on a wall in their community. The competition helps teach children the importance of Keeping New Zealand Beautiful by getting them involved in creating the design and bringing it to life.

From all the submissions received, 15 designs were selected as finalists against the following criteria; creativity (25%), environmental messaging (25%), presentation and aesthetic (25%). The 10 winners were then selected after being put to public vote via social media, accounting for the remaining 25% of the overall score.

The winning submissions each received a $750 Resene voucher to put towards paint supplies for their mural.
 
The winning schools and their regions are listed below, with their designs visible on the Keep New Zealand Beautiful website.

• – Balmoral School – Eco-Warriors (Auckland)
• – Creative Corner Early Learning Centre (Timaru)
• – Glamorgan School (Auckland)
• – Kaipara Flats Primary School (Warkworth)
• – Monte Cecilia Catholic School (Auckland)
• – Okato Playcentre (Otako)
• – Oranga Primary School (Auckland)
• – Tangiteroria School (Kaipara District)
• – Waihī Beach School (Bay of Plenty)

Papatoetoe West School was also a winning school, but has recently had to withdraw from the competition.