Fifteen Months on Principal Ashmore Speaks

It’s been a whirlwind 15 months or so for Ngaire Ashmore.

Since her appointment as Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, Principal Ashmore’s been hard at work with transformation the name of the game.

“The first thing I wanted to do when I came to Auckland Girls’ was to look at how we could raise academic achievement, I think Auckland Girls is a school which should be right up there on the academic stage so that’s been a real focus.”

Ashmore empowered her staff to encourage students to be all they could be. And it’s working.

At the start of 2018 Ashmore and her team received the news that AGGS’ NCEA Level 1 pass rates had gone from 78 to 90 percent, Level 2 from 84 to 94 percent and Level 3 from 68 all the way up to 80 percent.   An impressive start to Ashmore’s tenure as principal.

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In Keeping With Tradition

On 8 March, Liz Thomson, Ninth Principal of Auckland Girls' Grammar School from 1997 to 2016, returned to school to present her portrait, which now hangs with those of our previous eight Principals, dating back to 1910 when the portrait of our first female Principal, Anne Watt Whitelaw, was hung in our school's Study Hall.  

Five First Foundation Scholarships go to AGGS Students

2018 is a milestone for the First Foundation as it celebrates its 20^th year.  The First Foundation is a four year tertiary scholarship model – which provides the following:

Financial assistance:  $12,000 towards tertiary costs

Mentoring: The Mentors role is to assist students through the major transition from school to university.

Work Experience: Provides a minimum of 4-5 weeks paid work experience per year. Allows students to develop skills in safe work environment and build new networks.

 At the First Foundation Awards Ceremony on 13^th February AGGS students were awarded 5 Scholarships.  Out of the 31 scholarships awarded to Auckland students, AGGS had the highest number awarded to one school.

We are very proud of our achievement as competition for these scholarships is very keen and each student went through a rigorous interview process and in most cases was the only student selected by the sponsor.  The scholarships were awarded to:

Selu-Kian Faletoese        Year 13 sponsor: Sky City.
Selu-Kian was chosen to give the thank you speech on behalf of the successful Scholarship students and did a fantastic job of it. She is one of our Deputy Head Girls this year.

• Sabrita-Grace Kalone      Year 13                sponsor: Sistema
• Samyah Powell                Year 13 sponsor: Steel and Tube
• Georgia Boland:              Left in 2017      Studying Agri Business at Massey University, Palmerston North  Sponsor: Landcorp
• Maryanne Ma’asi :           Left in 2017     Studying at University of Auckland. Nursing. Sponsor: A+ Trust  (Auckland Health Board)

Bound for Medical School - Congratulations

Six ex-AGGS students have been accepted to study Medicine at Auckland University in 2018. They are Tamiel Tagaloa (Head Girl in 2016), Victoria Murphy, Sophie Yu, Vivian Chhan, Bisma Maryam, and Yestina Godinet. Entrance into Medicine is a very competitive process requiring very good grades in first year health or biomedical science, a good result in the Undergraduate Medical and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT) followed by an interview.  AGGS regularly has ex-students accepted into Medicine, but six students in one year is a record for us. We wish them all the best for their future studies and careers.