The winners of the Skills Bright Sparks competition for 2019 were announced at the Auckland awards ceremony at Datacomon yesterday. We were delighted to learn that Year 8 student Saniya Lal won third place overall in the junior division of the competition. Congratulations, Saniya!
Following the March 15 tragedy, it was decided to hold a community event bringing together people of all faiths and cultures. MHJC students also performed at the event attended by many community and religious leaders. Principal, Ian Morrison was given the privilege of addressing the large audience on the outdoor stage to reinforce our close connection with the temple and our commitment to promoting kindness and compassion through our value of awhinatanga. 💛
Photo credit: Genée Crowley
Three inspirational leaders, Dillon Boucher, Chlöe Swarbrick and Melissa Gardi were invited to MHJC to hold a panel discussion as a part of Ngahere Whānau’s (Forest) Yr 9 ‘Leading into the Future’ and Yr 10 ‘Future Pathways’ learning contexts, yesterday. Student’s gained an enthralling insight into the contrasting worlds of professional sport, business, entrepreneurship, tertiary study, Hollywood celebrity culture, not-for-profit organisations and New Zealand politics. However, it was soon evident that a high degree of commonality was shared between the three personal narratives: a strong commitment to personal values, resilience through adversity, passion and initiative to create opportunities, strong relationships, hard work and sheer dogged determination to pursue careers that are authentic, meaningful and fulfilling. Students and staff commented, “…we have just experienced something very special and truly inspiring!” Thank you to Mrs Selagan for coordinating the pathways event.
Today a rousing performance of ‘Kia mana ake!’ – the school Haka – was performed by all students to show support for the All Blacks. The team takes on Ireland tomorrow in the RWC Quarter Finals in Japan. GO THE ALL BLACKS! Feel free to share this video among your friends and family! https://youtu.be/1LsgW-Yigvg . #BACKBLACK All Blacks
One of our strategic goals is to attract, retain and develop high quality teachers and support staff. Part of this goal is achieved through our professional development plan. All our teachers are involved in “inquiry” projects of their own as part of our professional development programme. Every year we identify areas of our teaching or leadership that we wish to improve, strengthen or investigate and experts from within the staff or external providers support teachers to grow their practice. We also host a number of schools who are interested in how we deliver the curriculum, our focus on personalised learning and our DEEP programme in particular.
During the October holidays several teachers presented at educational conferences. Their time and efforts are appreciated as they have helped to reinforce our place at the forefront of innovative educational research and practice.
Ms Lambert has led a team of MHJC teachers for almost two years with resourcing from the ministry which has investigated how to strengthen collaborative practice among teachers. The positive findings of this research will help us to continue with our integrated approach to learning which allows students to see links between learning areas and develop authentic outcomes which are relevant to them, particularly with regards numeracy. She and Ms Grant, one of the team, presented their findings at U-Learn, other members of the team, Mr Hishey and Mrs Premdeep presented at the New Zealand Mathematics Association and Mrs Phadke will be presenting later this term at the Statistics Teachers’ Day at the University of Auckland.
Mr Choong also presented at U-Learn with the support of some of our students. His focus was the integration of STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) into the general curriculum and Mrs Newbold presented ‘Learning through the Arts’ at a Literacy Conference in Christchurch. STEM and creativity are both focus areas for the school.
The professional development of our staff and willingness to share our learning journey individually and collectively show that we are committed to our vision of “growing greatness through innovative, constantly evolving personalised learning”.
Growing greatness – Kia mana ake!
MHJC is extremely proud to share Ashvin and Arvinth Sathy’s achievements at the 2019 Halberg Games, which were held from the 11th – 13th October, at Kings College, Otahuhu. The boys had a great time on the track with their wheelchair racing events and gained strong results in both Boccia and Table Tennis.
Ashvin participated in a thrilling Boccia final, winning the Boccia trophy. Arvinth managed to defeat Ashvin to win the trophy for Table Tennis – this too was a thrilling final!
The boys enjoyed the opportunity to meet Grant Elliot and worked on their ‘catching practice’ whilst chatting with him. Ashvin and Arvinth also met the ‘Sports and Recreation Minister’, Grant Robertson and Para Olympian medalists at the Opening Ceremony. MHJC staff member Matua Brent witnessed the boys in action and remarked, “Ashvin and Arvinth were like the ‘All Blacks’ of the Halberg Games!”
(Reproduced from Google’s blog. I thought the points made in this blog post by Sanjay Noronha are sound and worth repeating to our community.)
These days, access to a reliable Wi-Fi signal can feel as crucial as having basic electricity or plumbing. In fact, a recent study conducted by Kelton Research and commissioned by Google found that 28 percent of people don’t think they could last a single day without Wi-Fi. But in that same study, a whopping 81 percent of people said they have experienced issues with their Wi-Fi at home. So why is something so essential considered such a hassle?
Luckily, there are some simple strategies to maximize your home Wi-Fi network to avoid slow loading times or grumbling when you’re trying to get online. Here are a few tips for making the most out of your Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi signals get weaker the farther away you go from your router, so if you keep your router by the front door, your videos might load more slowly if you’re trying to watch them by the back door. So if you can, place your router as centrally as possible within your home, though this may not always be possible depending on where your internet provider brings in the connection. And if you don’t mind your router sitting on the counter top, keep it out in the open. If you can avoid hiding it by a bookcase or filing cabinet, you can really help boost your Wi-Fi signal.
A mesh network is a group of routers that wirelessly communicate with each other to create a single, connected Wi-Fi network over a large area. It allows you to have multiple sources of powerful Wi-Fi throughout your home, not just one from the main router. Having a mesh network solves the problem of having the router just relegated to a corner in the house. We created Google Wifi as a mesh system because having multiple points work together to create a seamless single network provides consistently strong coverage for all connected devices in every room of the house.
If your existing router is more than three or four years old, check to make sure it supports 5GHz Wi-Fi signals. Some older routers only support 2.4GHz signals, which can make your devices much slower. Think of it as having a car that isn’t fast enough to drive on the freeway. Upgrade your router to at least an 802.11ac system so you can also use 5GHz frequencies, which are like the autobahn of Wi-Fi. (There are more lanes, and higher speed limits.)
Having an “open network” without a password might seem convenient, since there’s no need to remember a complicated password. But if you do that, anyone even driving by your home could join your Wi-Fi network and compromise your network, devices and data by accessing your drives or slowing down your network. Choose a strong password that’s tough for anyone to guess, but easy for you to remember.
If you have kids at home, or just get a lot of guests, chances are you’ve handed out your Wi-Fi password a lot. Setting up a guest network creates a second Wi-Fi network in your home so your guests can have a great experience while your own devices stay secure and private.
With the holidays coming up, the media is chock-full of advice on how you can restrict the screen time of your children. With all 3 major OS manufacturers touting methods on their operating systems (Microsoft -> Microsoft accounts, Google -> Digital Wellbeing and Apple -> Screentime), there is no shortage of avenues that the parent can take. This post isn’t about them.
There are some other methods in which parents can help ensure that their children are getting the benefits of technology. Here are a few that you could try during the holidays :-
Having said that, media consumption on computers doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing approach. Computers and television can play a key role in helping children wind down and relax. For example, a half-hour session of Thomas the Tank Engine after dinner can help your 5 year old make the transition from dinner to bed time and this will be more beneficial than 3 hours of it on Saturday afternoons.
Applications for 2025 are now welcome.
All applicants are required to provide evidence of immunisation before their enrollment can be confirmed.
Click here to see a description of our enrolment process.
Have you ever considered hosting an international student from Europe, the Americas, Russia or Asia? We are looking for families to become homestay providers to our international students. We need families for one term, two terms, and full-year periods. Families are reimbursed $300 per week.
We welcome applications from anyone in the Flat Bush area who speaks English in the home, has a clean, tidy home and a spare furnished bedroom, and has a desire to share their culture with an international student. Families need to be available and most of all, warm and welcoming.
Learning about a new culture through hosting an international student can be a very enriching experience, helping to enable people to understand other languages, food and customs.
If you are interested, we will endeavour to provide all the information you require. The application pack below contains information pertaining to expectations and guidelines which we hope will allow you to make that decision.