SPORTS REPORT

Colts Cricket:
Another spectacular performance by the colts boys over the last 2 weeks.  On the 25th February the boys played the Saint Kentigern 2 Colts Team and won! They showed they were true contenders in this competition as the ‘win’ seemed to come with ease.

Final Score:
MHJC 160/5 after 31
Saint Kents 2 159/10 after 38 overs

Last weekend the boys played Macleans College at Macleans. The boys didn’t let playing away deter their focus in a nail biting finish in cricket fashion. A few late wickets seemed that Macleans would strip the boys of their win and end the winning streak. However, with resilience, the boys triumphed to victory.

Final Score:
MHJC 85/5 after 20 overs
Macleans 84/10 after 39 overs

This weekend the boys are playing Takapuna Grammar at MHJC. Good luck boys! Hopefully the weather holds.

Y9 & Y10 Boys Blitz Cricket:
The Blitz boys demonstrated their grit when they played Pakuranga College on the 1st of March. In a game that kept stopping due to rain, the boys never let that interrupt their flow. They finished the game really late in the afternoon but won!

Final Score:
MHJC 106/8
Pakuranga 92/8

Unfortunately due to the tremendous rainfall we had this week the Blitz was cancelled. The boys will play their deferred game next week against Papatoetoe at Kolmar.

Y7 & Y8 Girls Blitz Cricket:
What an improvement! The girls played Holy Cross 2 and showed what a small amount of training can do. Although they still lost, the run rate was much higher reaching over 100 runs. The girls are also very lucky as Mission Heights has secured Regina Loili from Papatoetoe Cricket to help coach and improve the skills of our young female cricketers.

Final Score:
MHJC 105/8
Holy Cross 2 129/8

Likewise, due to the heavy rain the girls were not able to play Redoubt North on Wednesday. Arrangements are being made to play catch up games since many of the girls are away at camp next week.

Y9 & Y10 Girls Blitz Cricket:
This competition is starting! Although only against Ormiston, it will be a starting point for the girls and allows the school to develop our female cricketers for more competitions next year. Again Regina is coaching the girls passing on her cricket knowledge to our girls. First Game is next Thursday at Ormiston Junior College.

Active Post Cup:
The Active Post Cup is a cricket competition played between intermediate schools. Our boys will be facing 3 local schools in the running for this prestigious prize. Our first game is against Al-Madinah School on Tuesday the 14th March.

Orienteering:
Congratulations to all the orienteering students who have been improving drastically over the last few weeks. Times have decreased as distances increased. Needless to say these students would probably never get lost in the Waitakere Ranges. Special mention to our Junior boys, Jasper Carpenter and Caleb Jurgens who placed 7th and 17th respectively out of 109 competitors. Keep it up team!

Tennis:
On the 7th March the South Eastern Zone Tennis competition was on. Our students won some and lost some, but played very hard in testing conditions. Unfortunately the competition had to get cut short as the rain had set in. The students played very well and as a school we are proud of them.

Netball:
This year we have 7 netball teams (3 senior teams & 4 junior teams). Thank you to everyone who trialled and congratulations to all the students that made it into our various teams. Next step is training ready for the competition which starts in Term 2.

Football & Futsal:
Almost all the football teams have or are being named in the next week or so. To all our footballers make sure you check your emails to ensure you don’t miss out!

Hockey:
Last Hockey trial is next week Tuesday lunchtime. A select few have been invited back! Make sure you go to the trial if you want to play Hockey this year. You must have signed up before. Come see the sports office if you didn’t.

Rugby:
Boys make sure you sign up at the sports office if you want to play rugby this year! Email will be sent out next week to remind you all again.

Basketball:
Email sign ups for Yr9 & Yr10 students are still open. Make sure you email your name age and whanau in response to the email or come see the sports office. Trials are the 22nd & 24th March for girls and 23rd March for boys.

Swimming Sports:
The 9th Annual MHJC Swimming Sports event was held last Friday at Howick Intermediate. A warm crisp morning turned into a scorcher day with 160 students taking part in various events.

Each whanau were awarded points for every participant they had on the day and for every participant that placed top 3. The battle was set! Club swimmers got to show their stuff, and many students quickly realised that swimming is a very different type of fitness.

The points were as follows:

1. Forest – 400pts
2. Coast – 362pts
3. Water – 359 pts
4. Mountains – 308pts

Top Swimmers

Yr 7 Boys: Zain Ismail & Ethan Chen
Yr 7 Girls: Jessica Kand & Melika Zeyni

Yr 8 Boys: Douglas Gould & Safee Aziznishikaji
Yr 8 Girls: Marissa Dodd & Michaela Rohm

Yr 9 Boys: William Chen & Ashton Narayan
Yr 9 Girls: Niamh Beattie & Olivia McSaveney

Yr 10 Boys: Eugene Chua & Alston Chong
Yr 10 Girls: Nicole Fraser-Hall & Megan Strydom

A big thank you to all the staff, students and parent helpers who made this day a huge success.

Please click on the image below to view the Education HQ article that features the great work of Miss Hunter, and MHJC’s Enviro Council. 

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.