Manaiakalani Secondary Connects 

AI Implementation @ Hornby High School

AI for Educators

At this Secondary Connect event, we were fortunate to host a talented team of educators from Hornby High School in Christchurch. Known as the "Red Team," they are at the forefront of driving the school’s AI integration efforts.

Ben Carter, the school's AI Project Lead, shared insights into how they are ensuring AI is thoughtfully and effectively incorporated across all aspects of teaching and learning. Their approach takes into account alignment with the New Zealand Curriculum, the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the core values of the school.   

The presenters shared valuable insights and demonstrated a strong commitment to integrating AI, showcasing their innovative leadership in education.

Click here to review the recordings and slide presentations

Differentiated Learning at Hornby High School

We began our first Secondary Connect for 2024 with Alexandra Aitken, the Head of Health at Hornby High School, who shared how her department has observed a significant increase in student engagement and academic performance by implementing a differentiated learning approach.

The Health Department at Hornby High School redesigned their curriculum units to address students' varied learning needs by offering choice and fostering a collaborative learning environment among peers. To watch the recording and view Alex's slides, click here.

Our next presenter, Kerry Boyde-Preece, showcased various learning apps aimed at enhancing engagement and students' digital proficiency in readiness for NCEA.

Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers 2023

Jayne Abernethy from Hornby High School was one of the Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers for 2023.  Working with the Manaiakalani Innovation team, Jayne used design thinking process to develop a comprehensive resource, The Secondary Literacy Hub aimed at supporting high school literacy.   Click here to view Jayne's presentation and recording.

Matt Goodwin, our Auckland based facilitator, talked about the upcoming Manaiakalani opportunities for 2024, including how you can apply.

Click here to learn more about the Manaiakalani Innovators programme. 

Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers 2022 

At our last Secondary Connect for 2022, we had two exceptional presenters Pip Gorrie-Lawn from Coastal Taranaki School and Anusha Soupen of Papakura High School.   Both were Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers in 2022, who worked tirelessly throughout the year on their design inquiry research.  

Pip's inquiry focused on how to support disengaged readers in her year 9 and 10 classes with literacy.  Using Skim, Scan, Read and Question, Pip designed a methodology that enhanced students' engagement and understanding.  

Anusha's presentation focused on how using student-selected themes from contemporary topics like the black lives matters movement and the Dawn Raids aided students' interest and motivation to learn in her combined Yr 11 - 13 Mathematics, Statistics and Commerce class.  

To learn more about their inquiry, click here to view the slide deck and video recordings.

Share to Learn: 

Empowerment through connections

We had two exceptional educators share with us how they have embedded regular blogging into their classroom practice.

Ruth Hills, Head of PE and Health at Bay of Islands College will share how she has fostered a class culture of whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and aroha that extends into the online environment with students’ publishing their writing through a class blog.

Using a Growth Mindset approach, students are supporting one another to build confidence in expressing their ideas through writing.  This is enabling students to feel more prepared for their written NCEA assessments.  

Rowena Clemence, Head of Art at Hornby High School has mastered the technique of regular blogging with her students, as an aid to help them verbalise their thoughts, articulate ideas and illustrate their comprehension.  Students share their progress online throughout the year and this is proving to be a useful tool to moderate NCEA internals, while providing a running record of their learning.  

Click here to view the presenters' slides and recording.  

Turbocharge learning for high school students by developing Create opportunities

In term two, the Manaiakalani programme focuses on how Create activities can engage students with their learning which leads to a deepening of their understanding and knowledge.  

Hornby High School is a college that prides itself on being A Centre For Creative Excellence.  The principal Robin Sutton, encourages his team to foster creativity in every learning opportunity to enhance students' academic experience. 

At this Secondary Connect event, Robin Sutton shared with us his thoughts and ideas on leadership qualities that help to motivate creativity and innovation. 

His presentation was followed by the school's Head of Technology, Uai Liu who showcased innovative learning with projects like Grow Waitaha, Taro Project - 4C Makerspace and Designer in the Classroom. 

Lockdown Learning

What can we learn from Lockdown learning?  Principal, Edith Painting-Davis from Bay of Islands College, shared with us some of the challenges and triumphs the school experienced during their time of distance learning.  Student insights were shared, and new systems were developed to help streamline teachers' workflow and engage students.  

Tim Shawcross from Westland High School shared some highly effective literacy strategies from his own teaching practice.  Tim, a teacher of Music and photography explained how he improved students' achievement outcomes in theory and analysis based NCEA music standards