Badge of honour

“We are very proud of the results that our students have achieved through their hard work and dedication, and we thank the teaching staff for all the work they do to support and nurture the girls in their learning journeys. The exceptional achievements are testament to the commitment of both students and staff during what was an unprecedented and challenging year.”

Margaret van Meeuwen, Head of Senior School

2020 Examination results

SCHOLARSHIP

Students at Diocesan School for Girls have again gained exceptional results in New Zealand’s top Scholarship examinations, with two Year 11 students gaining Scholarships after taking the exam two years early. Sarah Ellis, who has been at Dio for three years, gained a Scholarship in calculus, and Alexandra Young gained a Scholarship in design and visual communication (DVC).

Alexandra worked on a redesign of the School’s drive-through shelter, inspired by the late Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, as part of her Scholarship DVC submission. She said, “I found her inspirational and really liked her design process and the fantastic and interesting buildings that resulted. The DVC teachers at Dio were great at encouraging us to do well and helped us learn useful skills to extend our work, including computer software and drawing techniques.” workload exciting rather than daunting, helped by her passion for maths, which she’s had from an early age. In addition to her schoolwork, Sarah has also started some first-year maths papers at Massey University.

In 2019, Year 11 student Arielle Freidlander achieved the same feat with a Scholarship in history. She went on to repeat this success in Year 12, when she gained another history Scholarship. In total, Dio students were awarded 38 Scholarships in 2020, with more than a quarter going to Year 12 students. The Scholarships were spread across faculties and reflected outstanding achievements across a broad spectrum of subjects. The Arts Faculty, with a total of nine, achieved the most of any faculty at Diocesan with three in drama, three in music, two in dance and one in photography. Only 13 Scholarships were given nationwide in dance, so to gain two is an outstanding achievement! There were seven scholarships in biology and another seven in health and physical education. Each of these faculties received one Outstanding result.

NCEA

more than 95% of students achieving University Entrance last year, nearly double the national average. We are very proud of the continued success of our girls. The results are a real reflection of the dedication of the staff, and the mahi of the girls during an extraordinary year, as they worked both online and within the school environment.

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE

In addition, four students scored 40 or higher in their International Baccalaureate examinations – Diane Wang (42), Sarina Mackey (41), Deborah Huang (40) and Zoe Zhu (40). These grades placed the girls in the top 6% of students across the world. We were delighted to have the four students recognised at the prestigious IB Diploma Top Scholar Award Ceremony, which was held at Diocesan in the new Arts auditorium in February this year.

Deborah and Zoe were in New Zealand and able to attend the ceremony; Sarina and Diane were overseas and watching the live stream. We are so proud of all their achievements and watch with interest where their studies take them in the future.

Scholars’ Awards

With the advent of the new Performing Arts Centre, we decided to run a slightly different format for the awards this year. We began with drinks and canapés in the foyer, moved into the auditorium for the speeches and awards and then finished with dessert and coffee back in the foyer. This allowed us to open up the numbers attending considerably – in the past the School Hall restricted us and as the numbers of recipients grew, the venue needed to change to a larger space.

Kate Wellington, the Academic Prefect for 2021, welcomed everyone with a short address reminding us to love our imperfections and embrace the moments where plan A doesn’t work ... luckily there are 25 more letters in the alphabet! She also reminded us of the need to find our burning passions and follow those, not what someone else says is important. The guest speaker this year was Emma Sidnam, a past pupil and past silver, gilded and gold Scholars’ Award winner. You would have thought that Emma and Kate had collaborated on their topics because Emma also spoke about the times when dreams don’t work out (that long-held dream of an Ivy League education that doesn’t

materialise), and about passions. Her passion for language has taken her to join the Latin American and Spanish Club at uni, a leadership role in that organisation, and travel to Colombia (pre-COVID). Passions, loving your imperfections and being prepared for a crooked rather than straight pathway were the themes that resonated in both speeches.

Emma became interested in the genre of slam poetry at school, and she has gone on to become a member of the Wellington Feminist Poetry Club, which she describes as “a safe place to rage at the world”. She then treated the audience to a powerful and beautiful slam poem on the topic of The Female Body, the perfect way to demonstrate one of her passions that, at school, she probably didn’t expect to be so important to her.

After the different categories of awards were presented, we finished the evening by making a small presentation to the three girls who have won Scholarship awards as Year 11 students: Arielle Friedlander – history 2020 and 2019 Sarah Ellis – calculus 2020 Alexandra Young – design and visual communication 2020

Guest speaker Emma Sidnam

Year 11 Scholarship winners Arielle Friedlander, Sarah Ellis and Alexandra Young

YEAR 11 SILVER SCHOLARS’ AWARDS

Year 11 Silver Scholars’ Awards are awarded to Level 1 NCEA students with a grade average of 90 or more across all subjects.

Sahaana Arunachalam Hannah Bell Amelia Brawn Clementine Buchanan Josie Christie Isabella Cleary Karissa Couper Amie Cummack Annabel Dekker Phoebe Duncan Sarah Ellis Amelia England Hazel Faire Eve Finlayson Isobella Francis Sienna French Estie Hamilton Tiaré Hansen Olivia Hardie Anna Hare Erica Hu Hattie Johnston Madeleine Jorgensen Jacinta Kelly Evelyn Kerse Sara MacGillivray Chantelle May Elyse Neill Katie Parr Lucia Partigliani Emma Parton Riya Prasad Riya Raniga Ella Riley Lucy Russ Erika Sessatid Lucy Shennan Natalie Spillane Anastasia Sun Caitlin Tam Lucy Tucker Brielle Wallberg Rylie Wilkinson Sophia Winstanley Sarah Wong Alexandra Young Erin Zhang Sunny Zhang Karina Zhu

YEAR 12 SILVER SCHOLARS’ AWARDS

Year 12 Silver Scholars’ Awards are awarded to Level 2 NCEA students with a grade average of 90 or more across all subjects. Cilla Austen Sam Blackmore Arielle Friedlander Madeleine Kirke Rosie Leishman

YEAR 12 GILDED SCHOLARS’ AWARDS

Students receiving their second award receive a Gilded Scholar Award.

Jemima Box Christiana Ballard Joomee Choi Jasmine Druskovich Holly Graney Sienna Gray Jasmine Ha Priscilla Huang Charlotte Hulme Lara Johns Natalie Kirke Shania Kumar Bonnie Liu Emilia Mackenzie Phebe Mason Natasha Mori Georgia Richardson Ella Ross Amelie Thomas Heidi van der Peet Jess Wech Kate Wellington Lauren Williams Ella Wong Alex Wright Sarah Young

Photos on this page - students and their families at the Scholars’ Awards evening.

GOLD AWARDS

To qualify for a Gold Scholars’ Award a student must achieve 40 points and above in the Diploma, which is the level that the national awards ceremony also honours, or three or more Scholarship awards. This year unfortunately none of the four gold scholars could be with us, indicative of the many directions that girls disappear to after school. We would like to pay tribute to them. and sum up their achievements. All our gold scholars this year were from the IB Diploma group.

Deborah Huang Deborah scored 40 points and she is currently at Otago University doing a conjoint degree in law and commerce (majoring in PPE - philosophy, politics and economics).

Sarina Mackey Sarina scored 41 points and has had several offers at universities in the United Kingdom. We believe she will be taking up an offer at St Andrews in Scotland. Diane Wang Diane scored 42 points and she is looking to attend university in the USA.

Zoe Zhu Zoe scored 40 points and we understand she is studying at Monash University in Melbourne this year.

Margaret van Meeuwen, Head of Senior School