Time to celebrate our academics

24 Feb 2022

Sports teams receive their Colours, cultural groups have Honours Ties, but today College celebrated the academic realm, awarding 45 students coveted awards for Academic Excellence in Level 1 or Level 2 NCEA.

With parents and whanau joining through the live feed, the annual Academic Assembly was an opportunity to publicly reward those who in 2021 reached for the stars.

Assistant Principal – Curriculum Nicole Billante congratulated the boys who had stayed motivated in spite of last year’s lock down and delayed exam period.

“You young men, whatever your motivational response to lockdown, turned up and gave it your all, right to the end.”

2021 saw:

35% of Year 11 earn an Excellence endorsement, 15% higher than the national average
36% of Year 12 students earn an Excellence endorsement, over double the national average
College boys outperform their Decile 10 boys’ schools’ counterparts by 15% at Level 2
The national threshold for Excellence endorsements is 50 credits – the average among our award recipients was 94 Excellence credits.
Six of College’s 53 Scholarships were achieved by Year 12 students – Head of Academic Bruce Chen, Yusef Elnahas, Oscar Gosling, James Griffin and Isaac Heap.

Nicole Billante asked those sitting in mentor groups watching the awards to take in what the young men represented.

“Yes, it’s academic excellence, but it’s also the pursuit of personal goals, a focus on what drives them, and a determination to succeed. Whatever your personal goal, strive for it, persevere, and give it your all. There are many uncontrollables in our lives right now, but what you can control is what you choose to focus on and what you choose to work towards.”

Head of Academic Prefect Bruce Chen thanked the school and particularly the teachers who had made the boys’ successes possible. He read the names of the recipients, before the assembly concluded with a cello performance by Year 9 student Jago Wallace, (accompanied by Nicholas Sutcliffe) of “The Swan” from “Carnival of the Animals“ by Camille Saint Saëns.