Tereora College has welcomed former student Dayna Napa back to the school – this time in a teaching capacity.

Napa (21) attended the secondary school in 2006 when she completed year 12.

The young Rarotongan, whose father is Arorangi resident Alex Napa, is in her fourth and last year of a teaching degree at Canterbury University.

She is back in the Cook Islands at present completing a four-week placement at Tereora College as part of her tertiary studies.

“It’s quite funny – my old English and mathematics teachers are still here. I think some were quite surprised to see me.”

Napa is specialising in health and physical education.

While at Tereora she is taking year 10, 11, and 12 classes in those subjects, and as an avid sportswoman herself Napa is enjoying every minute.

During her month on the island, she is playing five-a-side soccer for Avatiu and is a member of the Arorangi premier netball team.

In Christchurch she plays soccer, beach volleyball, and touch rugby at a club level.

Her year 10 students are studying volleyball and fitness testing, year 11 students table tennis and revision theory, and year 12 students volleyball.

Sports facilities which have been developed around the school since Napa was a student are benefitting those learning now, she says.

In 2006 while at college Napa played soccer and netball for Arorangi and was a member of various touch rugby teams.

She also played basketball and took part in cross-country and athletics events.

Napa and the three other Canterbury University fourth-year teaching students currently on placements within Rarotonga schools arrived in the Cook Islands last month.

They will return to New Zealand on Sunday evening.

The four students were accompanied to the Cook Islands by a university lecturer, who has been observing their lessons.

Napa is joined at Tereora by another Canterbury University student, while the other two are teaching at Nukutere and Titikaveka colleges.

Napa received a scholarship for her bachelor of education, which requires her to teach in te reo Maori at a New Zealand school for the first two years of her career. Upon her graduation at the end of this year Napa will be a qualified New Zealand Maori teacher, specialising in physical education.

In order to become a registered New Zealand teacher – enabling her to teach around the world – Napa must teach within a New Zealand school for the first two years. In August she will start her final teaching placement – a seven-week job most likely at a secondary school in New Zealand.

She moved with family to Christchurch from Rarotonga in 2002, and has lived in the earthquake-ravaged city ever since apart from her year at Tereora in 2006. Napa is also a former Avatea School student, and says she eventually wants to return to teach in the Cook Islands “because the lifestyle is pretty cruisey”.