Principal's Foreword

Tēnā koutou,

Warm regards from Auckland where Angus Burns, our Head Prefect, and I are at the Association of Boys’ Schools NZ Conference. It's great to have the opportunity to learn about recent developments in boys' education which can be shared with John McGlashan College. Angus is enjoying working with Head Prefects from 40 different boys' schools.

Our three annual Winter Sports Exchanges have been a focus for this week and the next. We began Term 1 with a highly successful STAC exchange. We then took on Southland Boys’ High on Wednesday. Next week we travel to compete against Timaru Boys’, where almost half of our boys are involved. It’s certainly a busy two weeks of pre-season sports.

On Tuesday we had the ‘Attitude’ presentations for all of our year levels throughout the day. These presentations are beneficial for our boys, covering topics like resilience, healthy relationships, and making positive choices, all tailored to their age group.

At this week’s school assembly, we added Jonny Leitch as the 13th  Prefect. Jonny has been putting in a lot of effort behind the scenes, especially in the Arts, and he truly deserves a place in this leadership group. We also appointed four Deputy House Captains: Cooper Cleland (Ross), Noah Clearwater (Gilray), Jacob Levy (Balmacewen), and George Holland (Burns). We had the McGlashan Big Band perform at assembly for Music Month.

Many of our school rock bands performed throughout this week. There are some great band names such as Deaf Raccoon, Clink, Toebeans, Yellow Snow and Quantum Croissants. These JMC bands will all be performing at the Rockquest heats this Saturday at Taieri College. Performing Arts Centre during the 3:30pm session if any parents would like to attend.

Also in the Arts, we are encouraging all of our photographers to enter the  Tūhura Photography Competition , which has categories in Wildlife, Botanical, Landscape and Natural Abstract. Our winning Shakespeare group is preparing for their trip to Wellington at the end of the month. We are looking forward to flipping the chapel to share their performance in next weeks assembly alongside performers from Trinity College. The Kapa Haka rōpū are rehearsing diligently for Te Hautonga in June, and the JMC Improv Group is resuming for 2025 this term. 

Finally, the Junior Social season also started up this week with John McGlashan College hosting the Columba and St. Hilda’s girls on Wednesday night with Years 7 and 8 on Thursday night and Years 9 and 10.

Kā mihi,

John Veitch

Acting Principal