Scholars and Honours Board
A special feature of this school is its magnificent academic record. The primary focus of Auckland Grammar School is of course academia - every other aspect of school life is secondary to this.
The first lines of our mission states:
"Auckland Grammar School will provide young men with a rigorous academic education. Each young man is expected to pursue excellence in acquiring knowledge and skills while upholding the School's values."
The young men who will cross the stage today deserve recognition for academic excellence in 2020. It is important to the very being of this school that we celebrate academia in the manner we do today.
Performance in Cambridge A level examinations and Scholarship examinations or equivalents in different decades of our history, have provided the benchmark indicators for inclusion on the prestigious honours boards that frame this hall.
These boards recognise top academic performers through our School's history. Students who sat NZ Scholarship examinations and gained three or more scholarships are included on the honours board and both Cambridge and Scholarship results will be recognised in individual student citations read today.
The School through time has used external examinations as its benchmark. Because of their competitive nature and the all-round standard of attainment needed for success, these examinations inevitably favour young men who have been committed to their studies and have built resilience.
The Honours Boards that surround our hall are symbolic of the School's academic mission and inclusion on them is rigorously earned.
The group of young men we honour today are top academic students from a talented Form 7 and 6A and B who were part of the make-up that earned this school its position as a top performing Cambridge School with nine special awards in Cambridge examinations, which included:
- Three Top in the World Awards;
- Four Top in New Zealand Awards; and
- Two High Achievement Awards
Alongside these awards the School was once again one of the top three performing schools in the country in NZQA Scholarship examinations, after students earned 161 individual scholarship awards in 2020. There is no doubt this supports our vision: 'pre -eminence in boys' secondary education.'
It is appropriate on this occasion, in the Great Hall, that we recognise our past - the foundation on which academic success continues to be built. There are many distinguished scholars who studied at Grammar and later received higher honours and academic recognition. Eminent scholars like Professor Sir Peter Gluckman '61, Vaughan Jones '66, Professor Peter McNaughton '62, Professor Keith Hunter '65, Professor Mark Warner '65 and many others who have made contributions across a myriad of fields.
It is indeed a feature of Auckland Grammar School that the Honours Boards are around the hall and that we meet here daily - this symbolises the primary place that academia has in our School and is well-respected by our Old Boy community and the general public.
Entry onto this list is restricted to the top 10% of the entire form 7 cohort plus 6A and 6B. The lowest average mark on the Honours Board for 2020 is 88%.
A number of scholars have earned scholarships into NZ universities and many have gained direct entry into overseas universities. This is testament to the calibre of these young men and the support given to them by masters throughout their tenure at Auckland Grammar School.
My thanks to our masters for their commitment to providing rigorous academic courses and pathways, on call mentoring and tutoring that has aided the level of success celebrated. I hope their success serves as motivation for others to strive for excellence in your studies. Such success does not happen by accident.
Sir John Graham, the 9th Headmaster of Auckland Grammar School, offered the students at the end of 1976 the following advice. He said:
“Start thinking about what you want to do, don’t aim for the middle, aim for the top, and the top is not necessarily playing for New Zealand in sport, or being the top accountant or lawyer or heart surgeon. Aiming for the top means aiming for your personal best. It is not unhealthy to aim high; it is not unhealthy to be ambitious, but it is folly not to do your best. If you aim to do your best, you will be well along the way to making life the fun and challenge it should be.”
We have a group of scholars on stage who aimed for the top and reached their academic goals. Their personal best. We congratulate them for "leaving the jersey in a better place" and I encourage each of you to aim for the top in what you do, and enjoy the journey along the way, and the reward if it follows.
We wish each of the young men on stage the very best with their chosen studies in 2021 and their future careers.
Click here to watch the 2020 Scholars' Assembly in full. Guest speaker Ken Rapson '64 also spoke to the student body and present the scholars with their certificates and ties; click here to read his address.
2020 Scholars:
|
Name |
Percentage scored and Scholarships |
Extracurricular Activities |
Area of study in 2021 |
|
N. J. Chen |
95.67% 6 Scholarships with 2 Outstanding |
Asian Cultural Group Tutoring Leader |
Applied Maths and/or Economics at a US university |
|
E. Z. A. Zhang |
95.67% 1 Scholarship |
Asian Cultural Group Tutoring |
A Doctor of Medicine via a Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney |
|
L. Kim |
95.33% 5 Scholarships |
Football |
A Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Auckland |
|
W. Q. Zheng |
95% 3 Scholarships with 3 Outstanding |
Asian Cultural Group |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Law/Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Sydney |
|
M. He |
95% 3 Scholarships with 2 Outstanding |
Asian Cultural Group Tutoring |
A Doctor of Medicine via a Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney |
|
A. Shekaran |
94.67% 3 Scholarships |
Football |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Auckland |
|
A. J. A. Che |
94.67% 2 Scholarships |
Amnesty International |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Melbourne |
|
D. M. Joshi |
94% 4 Scholarships |
Badminton |
A Bachelor of Science specialising in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Auckland |
|
S. Jansen-Snip |
94% 4 Scholarships |
Football |
A Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) at the University of Auckland |
|
K. Y. Liu |
94% 3 Scholarships |
Asian Cultural Tutoring |
A Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Sydney |
|
J. P. Harnett |
93.67% 6 Scholarships |
Baseball |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Auckland |
|
O. R. Pennington |
93.67% 1 Scholarships |
Basketball |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science majoring in Economics, Computer Science and Statistics at the University of Auckland, before transferring to the University of California Berkeley studying Economics in late 2021 |
|
A. N. Nelson |
93% 4 Scholarships |
Asian Cultural Group Tutoring |
A Conjoint Commerce and Engineering majoring in Finance at the University of Auckland |
|
L. Y. Jiang |
93% 2 Scholarships |
Asian Cultural Group |
A Doctor of Medicine via a Bachelor of Biomedical Science at the University of Western Australia |
|
H. Xu |
93% 1 Scholarship |
Asian Cultural Tutoring Club |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Sydney |
|
T. Ahmad |
92.67% 1 Scholarship with 1 Outstanding |
Aerospace Group |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Auckland |
|
E. Y. Y. Wee |
92.67% 1 Scholarship |
Chronicle Committee |
Serving full-time in the Singapore Army National Service for two years, before studying law in the UK in 2023 |
|
R. H. M. Jiang |
92.67% 1 Scholarship |
Amnesty International |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Auckland |
|
G. E. G. Dickinson |
92.33% 1 Scholarship |
Proceres Grammatici |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Law/Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Finance at the University of Auckland |
|
I. J. Mellis-Glynn |
92.2% 5 Scholarships with 2 Outstanding |
Board of Trustees Student Representative |
7A in 2021 |
|
Q. Luo |
91.67% 3 Scholarships |
Amnesty International |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Auckland |
|
K. Teyavongsak |
91.67% 1 Scholarship |
Amnesty International |
Bioengineering in the UK or the US |
|
L. W. McCallum |
91.33% 2 Scholarships |
Amnesty International Group |
A Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) at the University of Auckland |
|
N. W. Shore |
91.33% 2 Scholarships |
Aerospace Group |
A Bachelor of Bio Medical Science at the University of Auckland |
|
Y. D. Gao |
91.33% 1 Scholarship |
Asian Cultural Group |
A Bachelor of Medical Science at Griffiths University, Queensland |
|
S. T. Miller |
91% 5 Scholarships |
Chronicle Committee |
A Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Canterbury |
|
E. Manning |
91% 2 Scholarships |
Debating |
7A in 2021 |
|
Q. Li |
91% 1 Scholarship |
Asian Cultural Group |
7A in 2021 |
|
L. Y. F. Bao |
90.67% 4 Scholarships |
Asian Cultural Group Tutoring |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) at the University of Auckland |
|
A. P. Khoo |
90.67% 2 Scholarships |
Debating |
Economics either in the UK or the US |
|
R. Gan |
90.6% 1 Scholarship |
Asian Cultural Group |
7A in 2021 |
|
C. Lin |
90.4% 2 Scholarships |
Aerospace Club |
7A in 2021 |
|
D. H. Gong |
90.33% 3 Scholarships |
Chess |
Considering a Bachelor of Science degree into a Masters of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, or engineering at the National University of Singapore or Nanyang Technological University |
|
K. Dai |
90.33% 2 Scholarships |
Chess |
A Bachelor of Advanced Science (Honours) under specialisation of Computer Science at the University of Auckland |
|
M. J. Wright |
90.33% 1 Schoalrship |
Big Band |
A Conjoint Law and Accounting degree at the University of Otago |
|
A. S. Saiyad |
89.67% 4 Scholarships |
Chinese Dragon and Lion Dance |
A Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Auckland |
|
A R. Mudaliar |
89.2% 1 Scholarship |
Amnesty International |
7A in 2021 |
|
E. A. Nelson |
88% 3 Scholarships with 1 Outstanding |
Grammar Virtuosi |
Conjoint Bachelor of Arts and Law (BA/LLB) majoring in International Relations and Philosophy at Victoria University |
|
J. R. Speakman |
88% 1 Scholarship with 1 Outstanding |
Asian Cultural Group |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Science majoring in Finance, Accounting and Computer Science at the University of Auckland |
|
Y. A. Bhatia |
2 Scholarships with 1 Outstanding |
Aerospace Group |
7A in 2021 |
|
S. E. Blyth |
4 Scholarships |
Debating |
7A in 2021 |
|
J. A. L. Hayman |
3 Scholarships |
Bridge Club |
A Conjoint Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Art majoring in Computer Science and Media Studies at the University of Auckland |