Mt Albert Grammar School is launching an appeal to raise money for important projects and specialist teaching staff because it can no longer rely on state funding to do the job.
Headmaster Patrick Drumm explains in the latest MAGS newsletter that the new “annual giving appeal” has a different purpose to the annual school donation.
“The School Donation tops up the school’s day to day operational costs in areas of classroom supplies and equipment not fully funded by the Government,” he says. “Funds collected through Annual Giving will be put toward more substantial costs, such as new buildings, facilities and the employment of specialist teachers.”
MAGS is a state school but “can no longer rely on the Government to provide solutions to fundamental challenges we face as demand for our education increases,” says Mr Drumm.
“Annual Giving aims to ensure our students continue to receive the very best opportunities available through our academic, sporting and cultural programmes.”
Other news from the school newsletter:
MAGS mathematics students have won a number of prizes in competitions over the past few months.
In the Australian Maths Competition, which thousands of students enter from all over the world, Logan Allomes and Selina Zhang were prizewinners for coming in the top 0.5%. High Distinction Awards were given to Angus Edwards, Victor Kong, Lucas Peterson, Xander Pritchard, Nikita Privalov and Matthew Somerville.
In the national Casio Senior Maths Competition, five students placed in the top 100 – Sahil Bhatiani, Arique Chowdhury, Miriam Leonhardt, Richard Li and Joshua Norman.
In the Auckland Maths Olympiad in May Richard Li came 4th overall in the competitive Senior Division.
Organisers of the inaugural Calcex Competition, which was intended for schools in East Auckland, may have regretted allowing MAGS to enter. The team (Logan Allomes, Richard Li, Lucas Peterson and James You) won the trophy, edging past St Kentigern College, Pakuranga College and Macleans College.
Ryan Cory-Wright, who left MAGS at the end of Year 12 in 2013 to begin an engineering degree at Auckland University, has been accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study for his PhD.
MIT is ranked among the top universities in the world, and its engineering school is often ranked first. Ryan has begun the first year of his five-year PhD in operations research, a field focusing on making better decisions using maths, programming and algorithms which can be applied to a variety of industries.
In Ryan’s final examinations with MAGS he gained Outstanding Scholarships in Calculus and Statistics and a Scholarship in Physics, and was named an NZQA Outstanding Scholar for 2013, one of the top students in the country.
The premier boys’ basketball team played beyond expectation to won bronze at the 2017 NZSS Championships in Palmerston North..
On the way to their medal the team caused an upset win against multi-title winning Westlake Boys. They won Bronze after beating Christ’s College 72-62 in the playoff.
Captain Mandela Baledrokadroka was named in the prestigious Tournament Team, marking him as one of the best players in the country.
Swimmer Brearna Crawford won gold in all 10 events she entered at the NZ Short Course Championships in Auckland this month – setting three NZ records and five Auckland records. Brearna’s wins came in freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and individual medley.
