This role offers more than employment. It is an opportunity to stand with rangatahi, whānau, and community in work that is practical, courageous, and deeply purposeful — work that strengthens people, restores connection, and helps grow positive change for te taiao and the future.
Papa Taiao Earthcare is seeking a TEC Lead for the Wellington Region to coordinate and help deliver our TEC Youth Guarantee programme across Te Ūpoko o te Ika, based primarily at Battle Hill and associated sites in the Wellington region.
This is a senior regional role combining programme leadership, teaching, assessment, reporting, learner planning, stakeholder engagement, administration, and pastoral oversight.
We are looking for someone who can help lead a different experience of learning. Someone who understands that learning is not only something that happens in the head. Real learning emerges from the through ngākau/the body, through relationships, through whenua, through whakapapa, through identity, through challenge, and through a growing sense of belonging.
Our programme is grounded in practical, place-based learning and shaped by whakawhanaungatanga, manaakitanga, and poutama. Through these values, we create learning environments where relationships come first, care and respect are actively practised, and rangatahi are supported to grow through challenge, reflection, and achievement. Rangatahi engage in mahi such as pest control, māra kai, tree planting, beekeeping, regenerative farming, tuku iho, and tiaki taiao. Through this they gain skills, qualifications, confidence, and pathways forward, while also deepening their connection to whenua, whakapapa, food sovereignty, and the understanding that they are part of te taiao, not separate from it.
The role requires someone who can hold strong systems and warm relationships at the same time. Someone who can lead practical learning, support diverse learners well, and help create conditions where rangatahi feel seen, respected, challenged, and affirmed. The right person will know how to build confidence, identity, and a positive experience of learning through empathy, patience, practical success, and high expectations grounded in manaaki and whakamana, rather than approaches that diminish a young person’s sense of self.
Alongside delivery, the role will also contribute to Papa Taiao’s developing work in equitable and culturally responsive assessment. That means helping strengthen ways of recognising learning that better reflect the voices, values, growth, identity, and lived realities of ākonga, whānau, hapū, and community.
You have a real commitment to rangatahi and the ability to build trust with them in ways that are genuine, steady, and respectful. You understand that confidence and identity are not built through pressure, deficit language, or narrow ideas of success, but through manaaki, practical success, high expectations, and relationships that whakamana.
You understand that many young people need to feel learning in themselves before they can fully trust it. You know how to create conditions where ākonga can experience themselves as capable learners through doing, reflecting, contributing, and succeeding in ways that connect mind, body, and ngākau.
You are someone who can hold strong boundaries and deep care at the same time. You do not confuse high expectations with unrealistic demands. You know how to call young people forward in ways that strengthen their sense of self rather than erode it.
You are likely to bring:
A university qualification is desirable but not essential. What matters most is your ability to work in a way that lifts outcomes for ākonga, upholds their mana, and helps them recognise their own strength, value, and capacity to contribute.
Closing date for applications: 17 April 2026
First, investigate our website: www.papataiaoearthcare.nz
Please submit your CV and a cover letter outlining your interest in the role and the experience you would bring. Please include three references.
Closing date for applications: 17 April 2026