Year 11 Prizegiving

Because our Year 11s were doing MCEA rather than NCEA last year, they had to wait a bit longer for their academic prizes to be announced.
At a prizegiving assembly on Wednesday, our top 2024 Year 11s were announced as Jack Tyler, who won the Warwick Gibbs Cup for Best All-Round Boy in Year 11, and Melepuopua Tevunga, who won the Brian Murphy Cup for Best All-Round Girl in Year 11. Both are pictured above with Mr Drumm.
Sona McCormack won the Jo Williams Cup for Diligence, and Rafael Bevacqua-Kimi won the Robert Willmott Memorial Prize for Quality of Effort. Both are pictured below with Mr Drumm.
Khalen Quensell was on stage at the prizegiving in her official capacity as one of our Head Prefects and had the pleasure of presenting her younger sister Makaia, pictured above right, with 1st Prize in Dance.

Prefects Recognised at Leadership Assembly

Year 13s and whanau gathered in the F.W. Gamble Hall today as our Leadership Assembly recognised our 2025 Prefects and the Prefect Executive.
Prefects crossed the stage to be presented with their badges, followed by Head Prefects Campbell Buchanan and Khalen Quensell (pictured at right with Mr Drumm) addressing the assembly.
Both spoke of their desire to stay humble, listen to their fellow students and lift up those around them.
Our 2025 Prefects also debuted the pale blue '25 Years of Girls at MAGS' tie as part of their official outfit.
Following the event, refreshments were served on the front lawn, where parents, students and staff mingled – and many photos were taken.

No Student Drop Off Close to School on Alberton Ave

The volume of traffic generated by Mount Albert Grammar School, Marist College, Marist School and the Mount Albert Aquatic Centre using Alberton Avenue, for either transit or parking, far exceeds its capacity. For most of our community this will be a statement of the obvious.
In particular, traffic at the end of each school day is becoming more and more of a safety concern. It is disappointing that parents picking up their secondary age children remains the most significant factor contributing to this chaos.
In the interests of the safety of our young people, MAGS parents are asked to avoid Alberton Avenue completely and, apart from in an emergency, to not drop off nor pick up their children within 300 metres either side of both the upper and lower school boundaries.  
Please make alternative arrangements with your children. Thank you for your support.

25 Years of Girls at MAGS:
Seeking Foundation Girls and Their MAGS Daughters

Mount Albert Grammar School is both proud and excited to be celebrating the milestone of 25 Years of Girls at MAGS, and we are searching for those women within our school community who were Foundation Girls back in 2000. 
We are keen to make contact and reconnect with those ‘girls’ who paved the way and those whom have followed in their footsteps.  Mount Albert Grammar School celebrates both the tradition and change reflected in its history, and trumpets the significance of the introduction of girls and of their contribution to shaping the fabulous school we are today.
We are especially keen to reconnect with Foundation Girls, now mothers, who have also made the choice to send their daughters to MAGS.  
Please reach out to Jo Williams, Associate Principal – [email protected] – or phone 815 4036. 
We would love to hear your stories and hopefully see images that reflect these 25-year journeys. 
We appreciate that the passing of time often stretches both the sense of emotional connection and also inevitably the geographical closeness, and we believe this celebration offers an opportunity for us all to pause and reconnect with those friends, classmates and teachers who played a part in our formative years. 
Our wider MAGS community is encouraged to promote this milestone by sharing any information, this email and/or links to the MAGS website, with friends and family for whom this is relevant. 

Please Install New MAGS App

Our MAGS App has been updated and upgraded in line with our new Kamar Portal.

You will need to delete the old app and reinstall the new one to access the Kamar Portal. When you have done that and opened the portal again, you should see this address at the bottom:
 
https://mtalbertgrammar.school.kiwi/

Parents and students should subscribe to the MAGS App, so they can choose groups about which to receive Alert Notifications. General alerts and notifications are also sent out on the app.
Parents can access Daily Notices, teachers’ contact details, and notify the School if a child is absent. When notifying absences, parents need to load a child’s Student ID Number. This should only need to be done once, and this helps us record absences more easily.
Parents and students can check the School Calendar and sync chosen events with their own Calendar. There are links to Sports, Maps, Newsletters and more …
You can find out more about the MAGS App here

Coming up in the Arts ...

The Arts program is swinging into action with auditions for our Megacrew and for the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival.
If you are you interested in performing Shakespeare, the MAGS Drama Department is holding auditions for the annual Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival. This is an inter-school event where schools prepare scenes and perform them to the public and in front of an expert panel who give feedback and award students for costume, ensemble work, performance skills, and more.
Students of all levels of experience are welcome to sign up to perform.
If you’re interested in learning more, pop by the PA offices before Tuesday the 11th or email the Head of Drama Carmela Hughes at [email protected]

2025 Student ID Cards Coming Soon! 

Student photos have been being taken of Year 9s this week and the other year levels will be taken soon.
New ID Cards for 2025 will then be available. If you have not done so already and would like a new ID, please order now via our Kindo Shop. The cost is $10. 
Note: ID Cards will be issued in a student's legal name unless a change is requested beforehand.
Cards will be distributed via Mentor Classes in due course.

Statler and Waldorf

It's fitting that our former archivist Brian Murphy concludes his Historical Images series with the above photo of his friends and long-time colleagues Mr Gibbs and Mr Cave – being the last image in Set 100 on our website.
Mr Murphy says of this photo, which he took: "On 26 May 2022 the fourth Headmaster, Maurice Hall, presented Warwick Gibbs with this door sign, and declared the W.O.H. Gibbs Room open. It is aka the new, flash and enormous staffroom. In 2022 Warwick also celebrated his 50th year of unbroken classroom teaching, a job he loves. Many people, some taught by Warwick, spoke and his life-long friend Greg Cave, who is pictured with him here, spoke last, and then a speech from Warwick, you could hear a pin drop. A whole generation called both of them Statler and Waldorf. It was meant affectionately. Not because they were grumpy and critical – far from it, they are both the most affable of men."
Following this, Mr Murphy signs off with:
"That completes the series.
There are 500 primary images in 100 sets of five.
All the colour images have been taken by me and all text and other such images have been re-photographed with the same camera."

BRIAN MURPHY
ARCHIVIST
2022

You can see Mr Murphy's Historical Images series documenting MAGS' rich history here

Sports Update

Sign Up for Athletics Day

The School Athletics Day will be taking place at Mount Smart Stadium on Thursday, February 27.
Students must be registered on Kindo by Thursday, February 20. There will be NO late registrations. 
MAGS will also be running the following distance events at Lovelock Track:
3000m: Thursday, February 13 at 7:15am
1500m: Monday, February 17 at 7:15am
800m: Friday, February 21 at 7:15am
Students wanting to do the distance events must sign up at least one day before these events take place. They must also be able to get to the Lovelock Track at those times. 
Age Groups:
Juniors: Under 14 at 1^st of January (Born in 2011 or 2012)
Intermediates: Under 16 at 1^st of January (Born in 2009 or 2010)
Seniors: Under 19 at 1^st of January (Born in 2006, 2007 or 2008)
Cost: $25
If you have any questions, please contact Mr Crossan on 846 2044 ext. 8136 or email carlin.crossan@mags,school.nz