Dear Parents

Firstly I would like to share with you the success of some of our top students regarding Scholarship awards. Some of these awards carry a significant monetary value and are highly sought after. In a previous newsletter I have covered some of these achievements, but it is important to convey the number of scholarships that our Year 13 boys have obtained.

James Doyle won a Canterbury Rugby Scholarship to Lincoln University, Young (Willie) Vea and Matthew Howley won scholarships to AUT University and Dany Rassam and Robin Iskander won scholarships to the Massey Symposium. Incidentally, Liam Winter won the Dux award for 2009, so his trip to Ireland for winning the Irish Essay Competition did him no harm. What is very pleasing about these senior boys this year is that they researched the scholarships on offer and organised themselves to go after them. Christopher Rahardja received a University of Auckland Scholarship; Chelsea Tevaga an Auckland University Chancellor’s Award and Peter Yoo an Auckland University Alumni Scholarship.

Perhaps it is worthwhile to look in a little bit more depth at some of the boys’ achievements. Hussam Gabrial, who is a Year 13 Prefect, has won a Transpower Neighbourhood Engineers Award worth $2000. These awards have been sponsored by Transpower since 2003 and are open to all primary, intermediate and secondary schools in New Zealand. The aim of the awards is to create a greater awareness of the engineering profession and encourage innovative thinking in the areas of engineering and technology. Hussam’s winning project was a temperature controlled window opener and he is looking at filing for a patent on the design and getting in touch with some investors or companies to attempt to develop and market this as a product. He is hoping to study mechatronics engineering at the University of Auckland. Hussam also received the Robert Ned Covich Scholarship from the Catholic Schools Board which is worth $2500 every year for the next three years.