Congratulations to our Year 9 & 10 debaters who started their 2016 ASD season off with two impressive wins this afternoon.  Both teams debated in the affirmative for the moot, ‘Waitangi Day should be replaced with a New Zealand Day’.

MHJC 1 v’s Tangaroa College – Miss Wullings
Kayla Pieterse (10F2)
Solana Carpenter (9C2)
Ryan Iglesia (9C2)  – Awarded ‘Top Speaker’
Christina Bang (10F2) Reserve

Two lifeguards from Surf Life Saving  NZ visited Year 8 students in Forest Whanau to present tips to promote  safety at the beach.

• Learn about the Water Safety Code…
• Learn about Safety at Beaches…

Mission Heights Junior College is playing in the very successful (three from three) Year 9 and 10 mid-week cricket competition.  Three new players to cricket made their impact felt during Wednesday’s “Cricket BLITZ” match.  Our congratulations to: Sheffy Singh, Divek Nadan  and Harman Singh.

Click here to find out more about “Cricket Blitz”

​Mrs ​Alanna ​Young ​will be standing down​ as Board Chair​ this year and ​wishes ​to thank the Board and community for their support over 8 years of service. ​Alanna​ has ​thoroughly ​enjoyed working on the Board of Trustees and for the school​​ – supporting the school’s ​vision​ “​Growing Greatness through ​innovative, ​constantly evolving​ and personalised learning”​.

Alanna was co-opted as a parent representative onto the Establishment Board of Mission Heights Junior College in 2008, a year prior to its opening in 2009. In 2010, she was elected as Board Chairperson and continued in that capacity until ​the ​beginning of this year. ​Mr ​Blair Telfer has now been elected as Board Chairperson, to aid succession planning with the Triennial Board Elections coming up shortly.

Mission Heights Junior College is ​certainly ​a better place due to the strong leadership and support Alanna has given the school​.

We are pleased to introduce our 2016 Executive Council.

They are in alphabetical order :-

Alina Hayat
Christina Bang
Hruthin Pagadala
Josh Wang-McCarthy
John Yang
Kahurangi Mason-Wells
Katelyn Knox
Katrina Mohammed
Kayla Pieterse
Oliver Davies
Ryan Ngo
Sophia Herewini
Sinead Venter
Tyler Amos
Marcus Vaevae

As the holidays come to an end, may I extend a warm welcome to all our new students and welcome back to our current students.

I trust you have had a wonderful break and are ready to face the stimulating challenges of the new year.

Best wishes,
Ian Morrison
Principal

Three teams from Mission Heights Junior College have gained merit awards in the senior section of the IPENZ Transpower Neighbourhood Engineers Awards this year. This competition sees students working with engineering mentors to develop technological solutions to an issue/area of concern that the students have identified in their school or community.  The school is developing an impressive record of success, having also been awarded prizes in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Congratulations to:

Christina Bang, Sarah Hamza and Tyla Amos whose project “Feel the Heat” was developed to alert parents if they had accidentally left their child/ren in the car;

Katrina Mohammed, Bella Lin and Ryan Ngo whose project “Lock-down” was developed to provide an alert to computer screens if students needed to be alerted that an intruder or other natural threat was imminent;
These two groups gained valuable programming support from MHJC’s IT Manager Ben Doughney, Mrs Middlemiss and Mr Morrison their mentor teachers. They also worked closely with an engineer, Mikesh Patel from Transpower.

Ngapipi Herewini, Ashley Taimataora, Molly Herbert and Sophie Chen’s project “Walking Danger” involved the development an electronic device to increase safety at pedestrian crossings.  The girls used a Raspberry Pi and Pythonprogramming language to develop their prototype and were supported by Brett Willis, an electronics engineer from Fisher and Paykel appliances and mentor teacher from MHJC, Rebecca McGrath.

MHJC is pleased to report another successful year at the NIWA Manukau Region Science & Technology Fair. The Fair was hosted in the Middlemiss Theatre over Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th August, with 18 schools across the region participating. Judges were from the teaching profession, community organisations and experts in the science and technology industries.

MHJC had 46 students participating in the Fair. From our participating students, the following awards were earned:

Category Awards

First Place
Category 6 – Year 9 and 10 Living World
John Yang, Ryan Ngo & Bill Wong (9F2)

Second Place
Category 6 – Year 9 and 10 Living World
Shiwani Prasad & Athina Hiep (10W1)

Second Place
Category 8 – Year 9 and 10 Environmental Science
Molly Herbert, Ngapipi Herewini & Ashley Taimataora (10W2)

First Place
Category 10 – Scientific Photography
Molly Herbert (10W2)

Special Awards

Winner
Best Project by a Maori Student
Jesse Tuhaka & Samhitha Yamineni (10W2)

Winner
Best use of Statistics
Benson Ireland (8W1)

Second Place
Best Use of Flour
Joanne Ting & Sanraj Hayer (8W1)

Winner
Innovation Prize for Best Year 9 Project:
John Yang, Ryan Ngo & Bill Wong (9F2)

Winner
Innovation Prize for Best Year 10 Project:
Avinash Sathiyaseelan & Samson Ireland (10W2)