Celebrating Arts & Culture for 2025

It was great to see a strong turnout of students, whānau and friends on Monday for the annual JMC Arts & Cultural Celebration, where we recognised our Representative and Blue Award recipients in Arts & Culture for 2025.

There has been plenty to celebrate throughout the year for Arts & Culture across the board at JMC - 2025 has seen national level competitors in Shakespeare, RockQuest and the NZ Secondary Schools' Cheffing Competition. Our growing kapa haka rōpū Te Tira Haere o te Hāhi have performed at Te Hautoka for the first time, a number of new Photography & Art exhibitions have been on display and we have seen some great commitment to growing our Pipe Band.

The ceremony kicked off with some skilful piping from 2025 Pipe Major Caleb Ung as the guests arrived at the JMC Chapel, followed by a powerful haka from Te Tira Haere o te Hāhi to open the proceedings. Our student prefect MCs Angus Burns and Serge Meeuws facilitated the ceremony beautifully, inviting some inspiring guest speeches from our new principal Dr. Aaron Columbus and JMC alumnus Samuel Leaper - now a professional Musical Director, Multi-Instrumentalist and Sound Engineer.

72 students received Representative Awards (Reps) for consistent and diligent representation of the college and exemplary behaviour in a wide range of Arts & Cultural Activities including:

Pipe Band

Ngā Manu Kōrero

Kapa Haka

Ōtepoti Secondary Improv Club

Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ Festival

TheatreFest

Debating

RockQuest

BandQuest

Jazz Band

and

Chamber Music.

An incredible 20 students also received Blues for reaching the highest level of achievement and service towards Arts & Culture in 2025 in the following areas:

Pipe Band

Caleb Ung

Ngā Manu Kōrero

Kura-Mātakitaki Stevens

Kapa Haka

Jayden Toro

Jonty Ellis

Matt Hanna

Kura-Mātakitaki Stevens

Writing & Public Speaking

Dan O'Brien

Performing Arts

Reid Penwarden

Glenn Ericsson

Harper Milne

Ben Eckhoff

Timothy Stevens

Jonny Leitch 

Issac Morrison

Andrew Grounds - Andrew also received the He tohu o te kauanuanu award for demonstrating manaakitanga in senior drama.

Culinary Arts

Jemaine Wheeler

Luke Miller

Music

Christopher Body

Jamie Bradfield

Mitchell Urquhart

Visual Art

Hayden Phillips

Jonny Leitch

The students were formally awarded representative badges and blues sashes for their achievements in full school assembly on Wednesday 22nd October.

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate these awesome achievements with our students and staff. We very much appreciate the strong support from the community and here's looking forward to another strong year of Arts & Culture in 2026!