Manaiakalani Film Festival 2012

Thanks to Iisa for the graphic
standing on the podium in the spotlight.

The 5th annual Manaiakalani Film Festival was held at Hoyts, Sylvia Park in the Extreme Screen cinema on November 14th.  This has become the major celebration event for our cluster of nine schools and this year we were pleased to have even more movies and bigger audiences. There is a 'live' component to the festival as each movie is introduced by one or two children who have 30 seconds to engage the audience before their film plays. Check out these two cuties undaunted by the blinding lights and huge venue.


One highlight was the noticeable increase in the number of movies entirely produced by students.  A number of movies were introduced as 'the winning entry from our class movie competition", implying that groups of children had made movies in each class. Because we are a Year 1-13 cluster we had a huge range of themes and subjects with kids ranging from ages 5-18 involved in the making of.  All our movies can be accessed from this link. 

This year we were at capacity for our daytime screenings and our evening showcase sold out with many disappointed parents.  We are looking at hiring more than one theatre next year and running the daytime screenings of the movies simultaneously.

An important aspect of this celebration is bringing our schools together to create the sense of community between our schools which inspires us to share our goals and dreams and learn from each other. It is lovely to see students crossing school boundaries to leave supportive feedback on each others' movies.  This year a number of students have dedicated posts on their blogs to movies from other schools.  This slideshow embedded below links to a sample of the many student blog posts reporting on the movies they saw.



  Other links: 
Film Festival planning website 
View all the movies
Post by Karen Ferguson (Tamaki College Facilitator/ lead teacher)

Maths Whizz

Our 1:1 programme has been well supported in Maths in the last 18 months with the introduction of Maths Whizz.  We have teachers across six of the Manaiakalani schools from Years 5-10 using it as part of their Maths programme.

Ted Barks, a Year 7/8 class teacher at Pt England School, presented at the recent Ulearn12 Conference in Auckland how he uses Maths Whizz with his students to compliment his teaching.
Watch this video showing part of his presentation:

Partnership Hui

On August 3rd we held our first annual Hui for all the partners of the Manaiakalani Programme.    The aim of the whole day event was

To bring together members of the Manaiakalani Programme to 

• share and consolidate  work and achievements to date across all Programme workstreams
• identify short and longer term goals
• identify challenges and what is needed to overcome these
• discuss and define the Programme’s strategic direction  

Around 100 people came together on the day from all our representative groups including; Boards of Trustees, Principals, Teachers, Students (high school), Hackers, Researchers, Corporate partners, Philanthropic Partners, Service providers and the Manaiakalani Education Trust.

The day began with an inspirational address by Derek Wenmoth before we got down to the business of reflection and visioning in our various work-stream groups.

The events and dialogue of the day were recorded on Google Docs and embedded in a Site which we are sharing publicly here.

Rob Munnik from our own Schools Inc was there to capture the day on video and two episodes have been shared on Schools Inc already, with one more to come.
(see embedded below)

There was complete agreement at the end of the day that the feedback most appreciated by all present was from the group of students from Tamaki College.  Many gems emerged, but a particularly poignant one came from a year 11 student who said that when he was handed his netbook this year it was the first time he had touched a computer, and now he was not only expected to learn using it but also to prepare for NCEA Level One!

While we as teachers and school leaders feel we have shouldered an enormous challenge moving our institutions into the digital age, it is easy to wrongly assume that our 'digital natives' will find this transition easy.

Agents of Change

Many of the students in the Manaiakalani Cluster come from homes where a language other than English is spoken, so at any given time a number of our teachers will be enrolled in TESSOL papers at university.

Two of our inspirational teachers, Kyla Hansell and Aireen Ah Kui from Tamaki Primary School, have been taking the same paper this semester and presented one of their assignments in the form of a video entitled "Agents of Change".

Take the time to watch this video and be inspired by how the Manaiakalani Programme can enrich and strengthen the learning of our English as a second language learners.

TESSOL - Agents of Change from Tamaki Primary on Vimeo.

Managing the Learning Environment Pt2

Several months ago I posted links to short videos some of the innovative Manaiakalani teachers had created to share their teaching experience, focussing on how they have created a Managed Learning Environment using Google Apps for Education.

I promised there would be more to share, and here they are.  One is from a High School Graphics teacher and one is from a teacher in a Year 3 class.  The rest are Year 5-8 classes.


Karen Ferguson, Tamaki College
NCEA Level 1 Graphics, Google Site here

Wendy Burne,Year 3/4  Pt England School 
Literacy Cycle movie here, class Google Site here

Juanita Garden, Year 5/6, Pt England School
Writing movie here, class Google Site here

Kent Somerville, Year 6, Pt England School 
Maths movie here, class Google Site here

Kimberley Ouano, Year 5, Pt England School 
Reading movie here, Maths movie here, class Google Site here

Helen King, Year 5, Pt England School 
Writing movie here, Movie Making movie here, class Google Site here
Check out Helen's collection of Maths strategies videos here

Sarah Gleeson, Year 5, St Pius X Catholic School
Writing movie here, class Google Site here

Toni Nua, Year 7/8, Pt England School 
Inquiry (Mihimihi) movie here, class Google Site here

Sandy Lagitupu, Year 7/8, Pt England School 
Writing movie here, class Google Site here

Ted Barks, Year 7/8, Pt England School 
Reading movie here, class Google Site here

Helen Squires, Year 7/8, Pt England School 
Cybersmart Inquiry movie here, class Google Site here

Mike Harris, Year 7/8, Pt England School 
Reading movie here, class Google Site here

Nick Major, Science, Tamaki College
Presentation is here, Science Google Site is here

For those who missed them, here is the earlier collection:

Chris Marks, Pt England School - Year 5/6
Writing movie here, class Google Site here

Sarah Gleeson, St Pius X School - Year 5
Reading movie here, class Google Site here

Helen King, Pt England School - Year 5
Maths (number Strategy) movie here, class Google Site here

Joy Paton, Panmure Bridge School - Year 5/6
Art movie here, class Google Site here