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Year-end awards
END-OF-YEAR AWARDS
This year, due to the COVID restrictions, many of the School’s usual end-of-year functions and events had to be cancelled or were held in a different, toned-down way. Instead of prize giving ceremonies, year level assemblies were held in the last week of Term 4 at which many of the major annual awards were made.
The top awards are featured here, followed by a QR code that, when scanned, will take you to a full list of scholarship, bursary, prize and award winners.
Junior High School Dux
This award goes to the student who has the highest overall academic achievement. This year we have a joint Dux Award – Amelia Frear and Amanda Yu
Amelia joined Diocesan at the start of Year 9 when her family moved to New Zealand from the UK. We quickly discovered that such were Amelia’s unique talents and abilities she didn’t fit the usual Year 9 timetable, so she started to multi-level. This year she has completed year 11 courses in Latin, French, science, history and maths as part of her programme. Her results would be impressive at Year 10 level but the fact that she is working so confidently at Year 11 level is testament to her abilities and her determination to succeed. Amelia rounds out her day with a commitment to the wider life of the School across arts, sports and service endeavours. Amelia also received class prizes for Level 1 Latin and religious studies and a Board Scholarship.
Amanda is a talented and dedicated student across so many areas of school life, combining her love of music, both choral and instrumental, with drama and dance – and just to show her true all-round abilities, she is a competitive gymnast as well. For these achievements, Amanda has been named the Junior High School Arts Person of the Year for 2021. Amanda also has an exceptional academic record. While she is talented across several curriculum areas, what stands out is her grit and determination when things get tough – qualities needed most of all this year. She is always looking to improve her understanding and sets the bar high for herself. It is for these achievements that she has received the class prizes for drama, science, English and French, a Board Scholarship, and is named as the joint winner of the JHS Dux for Diocesan 2021.
Kanishka Kapadia
The Heritage Foundation CJ Tunks Memorial Award for General Excellence Kanishka Kapadia
This award is given to the pupil who, in her last year in the Junior High School at Diocesan School for Girls, through her commitment of energy, time and enthusiasm, has made the most outstanding contribution to the wellbeing of the School and/or its pupils.
Kanishka makes an outstanding commitment to Diocesan across every conceivable area of school life. We appreciate her efforts as a school guide, in the choir, as part of the Mathex team, kapa haka, helper at the Junior School after-school care programme and as part of the Future Problem Solving group. It is the attitude she brings to all her commitments that we applaud; her boundless enthusiasm is infectious, and she has a profound influence on those around her. She is kind, empathetic, encouraging, reliable and more than anything, true to herself and the values that ground her. While Kanishka is popular with her peers, that is not what drives her. Her sense of service to others makes her a most deserving winner of the CJ Tunks Award for 2021.
Proxime Accessit to the Dux Phebe Mason
Phebe is truly an amazing young woman. Alongside her role as the Deputy Head Prefect and her considerable involvement in the arts, Phebe has excelled academically. She has received the class prizes for business studies, mathematics with statistics and drama, a range of subjects that recognise the workings of both sides of her brain! As a learner, Phebe is driven by a natural sense of inquiry. She welcomes the challenges of learning and she values knowledge, not just for its own sake but because it feeds her interest in a diverse range of ethical, political, and social causes. Her winning Young Enterprise project exemplifies that. Period. is a product that recycles sanitary product packaging into new wallets. We congratulate Phebe on her award as Proxime to the Dux for 2021.
International Baccalaureate Dux Lara Johns
Lara is an exceptional academic and she is on target for a top IB score – she has achieved the top score of seven in four out of her six IB subjects, winning the subject prizes for Spanish and economics, and she received the IB Diploma Learner Profile Award. This award is reflected in Lara’s genuine curiosity for learning and a great joy in exploring new ideas and perspectives. This attitude was particularly appreciated by her classmates and teachers as she drove classroom discussion and investigations to new levels. That Lara has achieved all of this alongside being House
Jemima Box (left) and Lara Johns (right)
Captain of Mary Pulling, playing premier water polo and achieving her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award is something to be truly admired.
NCEA Dux Jemima Box
Jemima excels academically. She received awards for classical studies, physics, Latin and the Poulgrain Prize for modern languages. That her abilities cross the diverse range of languages, humanities and the sciences speaks to her incredible talents and the breadth of her ability. But just as importantly, Jemima is modest and humble about her achievements, and is always ready to lend a hand to others in the classroom. Alongside her considerable academic success, Jemima has been the House Captain for Selwyn House, a member of champion mooting and debating teams, and has achieved her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. She is an exceptional young woman, and we are very proud of her.
Eliza Edwards Memorial Award Charlotte Hulme
This prestigious annual award in memory of Diocesan’s third Principal Miss Eliza Edwards is made to a student leaving the School who throughout her schooling has contributed to many school activities, shown high personal standards and has exhibited the qualities inherent in the foundation of the School – love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, humility, faithfulness and self-control.
Charlotte needs no introduction – as the Head Prefect for 2021, she has led her team and the whole School community with all the necessary prerequisites of enthusiasm, initiative, organisation, and effective communication. That this has played out across a year that none of us could have predicted, speaks to the effectiveness of her servant leadership. But this award is not for Charlotte the leader. It is for Charlotte the young woman who makes others feel important, the friend who always has a caring word and a warm smile, the student who we are so very proud to know.
Charlotte’s greatest achievement this year is the life she has brought, with her team, to the vision that is Ko Ta -tou, something that is now a living statement about what everyone in the Dio community stands for.
Charlotte Hulme
