MAGS Blog!

Interviewee: Fatima Imran: Year 13 student at MAGS What is the  Model  United Nations event about?   The M odel U nited N ation is an event which is designed to get the youth to understand real world  issues and to find ways to solve them. People sign up and get chosen by the board. The board then allocates each delegate to countries and provides  committees  which the delegate should prepare for. We get given two countries; one which we present for the first committee and the second country to represent in the plenary round.  I was given  Philippines  and  the committee which I  part took in was  Gun Violence and  Terrorism . I  w as  the delegate of  Philippines  and   present ed  w hat   Philippines   believes ,  not what I believe  is right .  In the plenary round, I represented Marshall Islands, where I would talk  about Nationalism. In the plen...

Technology Tap, tap, swipe swipe, that’s all you’re gonna do, now the new apple’s ripe. They’re falling by the billion, filling up our homes, and you people have never been so obsessed with fruit. These devices are bubbles, bubbles, bubbles…...they won’t pop. They take you wherever, no matter the weather, because you’re together, and love on forever. Just pop. They strangle your brain much to the disdain of the one who bought your apple, with the love they saved up and is now down the drain. Please pop. Now just say your vows, because you hold this apple like you used to hold your wife or child - With passion. Love. Care. And gentleness. But if it pops... We will be alienated. Torn. Separated from the life we once knew. Everything is gone. Gone has departed, and departed is our personality. Once you plug in - there’s no plugging out. By Ella Vuetilovoni

A big congratulations to MAGS 1 and MAGS 4 junior teams for winning their first debate! As for many of the member it was their first time, and many of them were nervous. Going into the debate, most of them had no idea what it would be like, apart from a basic idea of the moot, and a tonne of notes. The moot for this debate was "this house will ban zoos". MAGS 1 was affirming, and MAGS 4 was negating. 'As we were herded into the class rooms with the adjudicator watching us seemingly menacingly, hands started to sweat and feet started to tap. It was a nerve-racking few minutes before it actually started. "Prepare your first speaker," the adjudicator announced.  "we will begin shortly." The amount of pressure we felt was unpredictable. What if we misspoke? What if we said something stupid? What if we lost and let down each other? But the second we began to debate, majority of our stress was forgotten. After a few slip ups, and lots of heavy argu...

Our bloggers meeting Mr. Stradwick. From the right - Nicholas Shillito, Ella Vuetilovoni, Elka Aitchison, and Harriet Neraat.  Four of us met Mr Stradwick one interval, with our devices on hand to record the best interview yet. We learned a lot about him during our time clustered around his round table (his choice). He went to MAGS in 1993, and as he is a teacher, he has been waiting for an opportunity to work here. He lives locally with his cat (he is a cat person all the way - much easier than dogs), three children, aged 5, 7, and 9, and his wife, who was a lawyer, but now works at St Peter's. He describes his kids as "hilarious and messy." He also provided us with funny anecdotes of his nighttime adventures dodging razor sharp lego blocks. Before Mr Stradwick came to MAGS, he worked hard and achieved lots - Through hardship to glory (we now know that is his favorite line of the school song). He taught art history, history, geography, social studies, economics, a...

Mr. Stradwick made an effort to know our names, a nice start, avoiding the usual awkwardness that sometimes floats through first conversations. His office was tall but small and managed to have very even, clean lighting, from its windows even without natural light. We seated around his round table, like knights, but with paper, pens, and a recording app rather than swords. He was instantly welcoming and relaxed making the start of our round of questions confined to twenty minutes seem spacious rather than tense. “I’ve been watching for an opportunity to work here. It’s my old school, so I am an old boy from 1993. And Mount Albert is something special for me, I live in Mt Albert, my children go to school in Mount albert, so it just makes sense to be part of the community.” Prior to working at MAGS he did a lot of different jobs at lots of different schools. He helped open a new school, taught at a challenging school is another part of Auckland, and before that, most interesting o...

As many of you may know Mount Albert Grammar School has welcomed several new teachers this year in addition to an abundance of year 9’s. I decided to interview one of the new teachers to get a better perspective of what it is like to be a new teacher at MAGS and to learn a little more about one of the new teachers. Mr Bindon, a new Math teacher has taught in Christchurch, Queenstown and Taranaki in New Zealand as well as two different schools in the United Kingdom. He has been teaching for almost 14 years. He chose to work at MAGS as when he came back to New Zealand from the U.K he considered two different schools (one being MAGS). MAGS was his top pick as our school is doing well academically, in sports and Mr Bindon attended MAGS as a pupil in his youth. Coming back to MAGS has been a nostalgic experience for Mr Bindon “walking around the school, memories come back to me”. Mr Bindon has enjoyed his time at MAGS (as a teacher) so far and said that MAGS is “similar to the schools I...

AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH HOUGHTON by Humeera Imran How many times have you attended Athletics? This was the first year I went to the MAGS athletics day (with my friends), which I totally regret now because it was so much fun I wish we had gone every year! However, the 3000m is run as a separate event after-school and this is my third year doing it. What did you think of Athletics this year? I was very impressed! There are way more people participating, both in the 3000m and Athletics Day, than there have been in previous years and everyone seemed to enjoy the event no matter their skill level. I did shot put and discus as well as runs on Athletics Day which I have zero experience in but the great thing about Athletics Day is it is just filled with students giving it a try without judging themselves or others. What was the best part about Athletics? For me the best part is the 3000, because I'm more of a long distance runner - I get wasted in the short stuff! I real...