Marginalised and ousted from the New Zealand education system, 70% of youths apprehended for offending and appearing in a New Zealand Youth Court or Rangatahi Court experiencing complex needs are not engaged in education, employment, or training (Oranga Tamariki, Oranga Tamariki. (2020). Quarterly report - September 2020). This article reports findings from a broader PhD study investigating the educational experiences of 10 rangatahi Maori (Maori youth) aged 15-17 years apprehended for serious youth offending and excluded from mainstream education. Drawing on matauranga Maori (Maori knowledge) and kaupapa Maori, notions of indigenous resilience are used to unpack the rangatahi Maori participants' responses to negative educational experiences in the mainstream English medium secondary school education system. This article posits that resilience was evident when the rangatahi Maori exercised tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) through boldness (a characteristic of Tu-mata-uenga the guardian of war), resistance and liminality to reject educational spaces where they perceived they were underserved, discriminated against, and marginalised. Changing the negative Maori student exclusion and disengagement statistics in mainstream education is critical. To address the exclusion statistics, classroom practitioners could be more responsive to rangatahi Maori experiencing complex needs by recognising their experiences and understanding their responses to those experiences. Understanding how resilience as resistance, liminality, and boldness is understood within te ao Maori (the Maori world) perspectives will enable a more culturally responsive approach to working with these rangatahi Maori in mainstream education.