6 Years of Film Festivals

November 13th, six years down the track, our Manaiakalani Film Festival expanded to two theatres over the 12 hours. 3000 children visited during the day and our extravaganza at night was packed with parents and supporters.  It was fabulous to have a Manaiakalani alumni, Peni Peleti, as our MC in the evening.

This year Sommerville Special School and Stonefields School attended and showcased movies.

Be sure to visit our webpage and check out some of the movies from the schools.

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2013 from SchoolTV on Vimeo.
Thanks to Andrea Tele'a for this video

Google Video

In June this year we had the amazing experience of having a team from Google led by Robin Morgan come to Pt England School to make a video about our community of learners.

Today we heard the news that it was ready to air and we are so pleased to see our young people and their whanau being showcased on YouTube.

The professionalism of the team made this experience special for our community. We all learnt heaps from watching how Anna Brent, Jeremie Battaglia, Karen Mackenzie and Zara Balfour worked together to create the film. Even the weather in the gloomiest part of the year gave us a break for the filming outside.

Partnering with the Super City

It was a special day for Manaiakalani when the Mayor of Auckland City, Len Brown, signed a memorandum of understanding between the Manaiakalani Education Trust and the Super City of Auckland, NZ.
Thanks to Auckland City we are able to carry out our dream of providing free internet to our children in our homes and mount the access points on power poles in our streets.  We appreciate the way our mayor has cut through red tape and barriers to help the Tamaki Learning Network to become a reality.

According to Len Brown,
“I am excited by the opportunity for Auckland Council to pool resources and share information with the trust to support digital learning for children and young people.”.

Read more about this here

SchoolTV SchoolTV Part One, 28th June 2013 - Mayor Len Brown from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

The Mayor of Auckland City signed a 'Memorandum of Understanding' between Auckland City and the Manaiakalani Education Trust. This movie shows you this hui which includes people of our community, our Kapahaka group and whanau.

A Nation Born of Sailors: Kia Kaha

We have spent the past weeks reflecting on the huge distance our Manaiakalani schools have come over the last 4 years, and the America's Cup racing this week has underlined it again.

Every class able to watch the racing, in real time, in high definition, with sound, on a big screen.  
And/Or, every kid, on their own device.  All cheering on Team New Zealand. All with access to information and data - at a mouse click.

This wonderful video, "Kia Kaha San Francisco", is presented as a gift from a Nation Born of Sailors to the Best Sailors in the World...

And to many a reminder of the origins of Manaiakalani.....

A Control Group

We began tracking outcomes from the Manaiakalani Programme in 2007 and from time to time get asked, "Do you have a control group of students?"

The answer has always been an unequivocal "No" for a variety of reasons, including a philosophical disagreement with the thought of select young people having an innovative, engaging learning experience while others in a class next door look on.

It came as a surprise when reading through our research report to realise that - inadvertently - for the first time in 2013 we have a control group of students in one of our cohorts.  It was the transition from Year 8 in our primary schools to Year 9 at Tamaki College that enabled this. When data was collected in Term One from e-asTTle testing in Reading, Writing and Maths there was a cohort (one third approx) who had participated in the Manaiakalani programme when they attended Manaiakalani primary schools, and a cohort (approx two thirds) who came from a wide variety of primary schools from around Auckland and beyond. This second group mostly came from low decile schools also.

The difference in e-asTTle data was surprising, even to us true believers.  

The full report is available online and pages below are referenced from this document.

This commentary was provided by Prof Stuart McNaughton in the brief summary of the report:

Students entering Year 9 (2013) (into Tamaki College) from the Manaiakalani schools had higher average achievement levels than those from elsewhere, supporting evidence that the primary schools are having some success in achievement levels, compared with students from schools in like circumstances. The two thirds of students who came from outside the cluster were two sub levels below the others in reading (3B). This meant the total cohort entering Year 9 had widely spread achievement levels. 

The patterns for maths and writing were similar but at lower levels.

The Reading image is taken from page 122 of the report.
The cohort on the left are the Year 9 students who were at Manaiakalani primary schools in the previous year.
The cohort on the right came from 'Other' primary schools.

This is the most startling contrast , with the red line indicating the gap between the two groups of students' achievement in Reading at Year 9.

The Maths image is taken from page 158 of the report.

The cohort on the left are the Year 9 students who were at Manaiakalani primary schools in the previous year.
The cohort on the right came from 'Other' primary schools.

The Writing image is taken from page 177 of the report. 
The cohort on the left are the Year 9 students who were at Manaiakalani primary schools in the previous year.
The cohort on the right came from 'Other' primary schools.

The challenges our high school teachers face in effectively teaching this diverse group of students are huge. 

"The pattern (also) indicates a substantial challenge catering for the range and especially the very low group, who have reading skills and knowledge which are not sufficient to engage effectively in reading in subject areas at expected levels without intensive support. The level of the challenge is such that they need to make up four full curriculum levels by Level 2 NCEA for the school to meet the 85% pass rate." p11