Nga Manu Korero Finals in Whangarei

During the last week of Term 3, Ahi Kaitai-Mullane represented our school and region at the Manu Korero National Finals in Whangarei.  To get there, she had to win the Regional Nga Manu Korero competition in Invercargill.  Which she did.  Ahi was representing in the Senior English category, and asked me to attend in support.  I was honoured to do so.

We were also supporting students from Otago Boys' High School, Otago Girls' High School and Kings' High School, who were representing in Senior Maori, Junior English and Junior Maori respectively.

It was wonderful to have students and staff from all four schools come together and work as one.  Too often high schools tend to compete against each other for students.  This was a refreshing change.  If only it could be like this more often! Imagine what could be achieved with collaboration rather than competition.  Anyway, I digress ...

Ahi's prepared speech was very powerful.
You should also watch the support haka from our four schools.  I'm the petrified one hiding in the back behind our very capable students (we had 24 hours to learn it).



We also managed to visit the Treaty of Waitangi grounds, which was pretty special.  I had a real sense of our history there, and it was made extra special by the fact that all Otago schools were on the grounds at the same time practising their waiata.

We had to do the rollercoasters!

Auckland

Waiata at Waitangi

Our crew at Waitangi

Shae, Chelsea, Hope-Jane, Ahi and Emma represent Logan Park High School and Otakou/Murihiku

Otago schools unite

Whangarei palm trees

Practising

Matuas waiting

Waitangi treaty grounds

Where we stayed

More fantastic videos, including Ahi's impromptu speech, can be found here.

The New Zealand Spelling Bee (or 'Let's get Spellbound!')

Last year I won a teaching award through the New Zealand Spelling Bee organisation.  Janet Lucas has worked tirelessly for years to have this competition be the success it is, and last year's competition was the end of an era, so to speak.  Not that anyone knew it then.  Every year I ask students if they want to enter, and every year we have about 10 students sit the written tests, which get sent to Janet and marked.  We seem to have a strong tradition in spelling; in 2014, when I reinvigorated entries from Logan Park (it had fallen off the radar for a couple of years) we had three semi-finalists.  George Sebonadiere actually went on to win the national Spelling Bee after placing second in the regional semi-final.  You can read about George's wins here and here and here and here!

In 2015, we had three students go through to the regional semi-finals, but just missed out; the top two went through and one of our students came third.  This year, two students (repeat semi-finalists!) went through to the final stages.  But this year was different.

This year, the New Zealand Spelling Bee became 'Spellbound', a new TVNZ programme, complete with shiny lights, glitzy sets and Toni Street.  Wowzers!  What followed was two intensive days of 'welcome to television' and invaluable media lessons for the students.

Annie and Hugh, our finalists, were flown up to Auckland and then spent pretty much every waking hour of those two days at the Bruce Mason Theatre.  Hugh made the finals of the finals, but poor Annie had to wait around until 8pm (they arrived at 7am) to compete in here not-quite-final.

It was exhausting and different to what we had expected.  Hugh and Annie can both hold their heads up high.  They competed with grace and dignity and I was really proud to be able to support them up there.

There was a gorgeous sunset on the way home, too.

http://www.spellingbee.co.nz/

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/ondemand/spellbound