This week the Dilworth community, students, their whānau, our staff and guests came together to celebrate the achievements of the school’s top scholars for 2023 - students who received excellence certificate endorsements at Levels 1, 2 or 3 NCEA.
Dilworth’s Top Scholars Awards evening is one of the hallmark fixtures of the school’s calendar. In last night’s celebratory event, the support for those achieving so well academically was evident across the school and community.
In his opening address, Headmaster Mr Dan Reddiex addressed all students, saying “There is much to celebrate as we look back on last year’s achievements. Collectively we met our Excellence credit targets and tonight we celebrate those young men who individually excelled. It is their efforts and their successes that we are gathered to recognize and applaud this evening”.
He emphasised that achieving academically “Is not for the glory of Dilworth, but for the growth of our precious tāonga – you”. He then talked about the importance of making the most of educational opportunities saying it is part of the Dilworth ethos and expectation - regardless of whether that ends up translating into Excellence grades or not. Mr Reddiex then explained why, talking about the importance and value of education, saying “If you take a step back and look at the most vulnerable in our world, education is certainly a key element to dramatically changing entire societies”.
Last night however belonged to the students who had excelled academically in 2023. As Mr Reddiex read out citations detailing each student’s achievements, diversity of talent was evident with students excelling across a range of subject areas – some across multiple disciplines.
A theme of hard work - and the sheer graft to get there was a recurrent theme and it was particularly heartwarming to see several year 13’s, young men who had not previously received academic colours, coming up on stage to receive Level 3 academic colours for an outstanding effort last year.
At the conclusion, the whole school was applauded by Mr Reddiex for the best NCEA results the school has ever had “Since the inception of NCEA Certificate endorsements, this year’s number of Excellence Certificate Endorsements was our best ever result as a School, that is something to be proud of”.
The final suite of colours presented were Scholarship Awards, only awarded to a very small percentage of students across the country and hotly contested. This year seven scholarships were awarded to Dilworth students.
Another highlight of this wonderful evening was a musical item performed by Head Prefect, Joshua Futi, accompanied by Alex Bai. Their rendition of Widmung, by Robert Shuman simply stunning.
Huge congratulations to all our Top Scholars for 2023
Please see the full list of winners below...