Mandarin Teacher Juliet Gao has won a 2017 Chinese Scholarship to Beijing, sponsored by the governments of New Zealand and China. Only twelve New Zealand teachers were selected nationwide. She will travel to China in April on a three week intensive language and culture programme hosted by the Beijing Language and Culture University. This will be a prestigious opportunity for both Mrs Gao and our school to enhance our teaching pedagogies in teaching and learning Mandarin, and to connect with the international language teaching community. Our school’s commitment to teaching Chinese language and culture impressed the panel.

The programme partners are:
• Chinese Ministry of Education via Hanban
• New Zealand Ministry of Education through ILEP
• Chinese Embassy in Wellington
• Beijing Language and Culture University

Jayshant Kumar (10M1 – pictured centre) has recently taken up athletics with the Pakuranga Athletics Club. His events are 100m , 200m, 60m and Long Jump. The Counties Manukau Champs were held last Saturday and Jay did extremely well, bringing back medals for all 4 events in the under 14 boys ;
Gold medal in Long Jump, Silver medal for the 60m sprints and Bronze medals for 200M and 100M sprints. We are extremely proud of Jay and his achievements at MHJC and wish him all the very best for this weekend coming, where he will be competing at the Auckland Athletics Championships.

We extend a warm welcome to the following new teachers and support staff:
Pictured from Left: Tess,  Ayesha,  Lesley,  Laetitia,  Sonia,  Wyn, Razak,  Dino  &  Patricia.
(Adora & Elise absent)

Teachers:
Tess Connell is a beginning teacher in Forest Whanau who teaches Global Studies. Tess studied Psychology and Sociology at the University of Auckland. She loves tramping, painting landscapes and travelling (she once travelled the length of India!)

Wyn Morris is an experienced teacher from Remuera Intermediate School who has joined Mountains Whanau teaching Mathematics and Science. Wyn has  twin girls and loves the outdoors, camping, gardening and horticulture.

Sonia Lovemore is a second year teacher who specialises in Health and Physical Education, joining Mountains Whanau this year. She has a passion for and is an accomplished football and touch rugby player and loves animals.

Dino Gardi brings a wealth of experience in Outdoor Education having run successful programmes at Edgewater College, Alfriston College and Tangaroa College. He is teaching Global Studies and Health and PE in Forest Whanau so he can share his passion for the environment with his students in two learning areas.

Lesley Williamson is teaching Science in Water Whanau as a new career move after starting and developing the very successful “Littlies” company which provided parenting advice to thousands of subscribers. This passion to help others has found expression in teaching, a lifelong dream of hers.

Adora Lindsay teaches Maths and Science in Coast Whanau and has valuable experience of successfully leading a collaborative team of teachers at Alfriston College. She is keen to contribute to the collegial, cross curricular approach we promote at MHJC. 

Patricia Zwarts is relieving for Priscilla Naidoo in term 1 as Ms Naidoo completes her Masters degree. She is an experienced teacher of Domestic Science and loves gardening.

Support Staff:
Laetitia Jansen Van Rensburg is our new Sports Assistant and a qualified fitness instructor. She has a degree in Sports Management and a passion for all sports, particularly netball which she plays at a high level.

Razak Shukor has joined us our IT assistant. He has excellent qualifications and experience in the IT field specialising in systems and operations management.

To cope with the extra volume of work in the library as the two schools grow, a Library Assistant has been employed. Elise de Silva is passionate about books and reading and also is experienced in multi-tasking – a key requirement in this busy role.

Ayesha Kumar joined us in term 4 last year as our Science laboratory Technician. Originally from Singapore she completed her B.Sc in Biological Science at the University of Auckland.

As a part of the ‘exploration’ stage of their learning journey, Year 9 students from Water Whanau enjoyed the opportunity to conduct firsthand research with industry experts, Emma Pilkington and Sesh Dayal from Botany Flight Centre today.  Students have been tasked with the challenge of designing an ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ tour on a budget, taking account for real-world requirements such as passports, visas, timezones, currency, insurance, personal safety and travel bans plus a range of ‘What if’ scenarios and travel tips.  We thank Emma and Sesh for their time and valued support of the school.

Here is a short video about BYOD & Cyber Citizenship @ MHJC, constructed by Mr Singh’s media team.

Jayshant Kumar (10M1) has recently taken up athletics with the Pakuranga Athletics Club. His events are 100m , 200m, 60m and Long Jump. The Counties Manukau Champs were held last Saturday and Jay did extremely well, bringing back medals for all 4 events in the under 14 boys ;
Gold medal in Long Jump, Silver medal for the 60m sprints and Bronze medals for 200M and 100M sprints. We are extremely proud of Jay and his achievements at MHJC and wish him all the very best for this weekend coming, where he will be competing at the Auckland Athletics Championships.

We are proud to share Mr Morrison’s ‘Education Perfect World Champions’ acceptance speech and encourage MHJC students to enter Education Perfect in 2017!

Click on the image below to view an Eastern Courier article, detailing MHJC’s recent engineering successes…

Many MHJC staff and students will be interested to view footage of training drills from CJ Lupena-Baker’s UK football tour, with the Westham Oceania Academy. During the second stage of the tour, CJ’s Team spent two days in Manchester before heading down to London, on the way they played Liverpool County FA winning 4-1.

They then had training sessions at Rugby Town, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers before attending the English Championship Game between Wolverhampton and Fulham at Molineux Stadium.  CJ reported that it was a thriller of game with the result being 4-4.

Click to view videos…
CJ’s Football Tour 1
CJ’s Football Tour 2

CJ’s team played their last game of the tour against Burton Albion at the National Training Facility, which they won 1-0. They then went on a bus tour of London, with extensive shopping taking place at the Nike and Adidas stores!  We are glad that CJ returned home safely from his overseas adventures and look forward to his continued success and enjoyment of football in 2017, and beyond.