Presented the award at Prizegiving on Thursday 28 December, Johnathan was crowned as the school’s top academic by Headmaster Simon Lamb to a standing ovation and powerful haka performed by his peers.
Mr Lamb presented Johnathan’s achievements during his time at King’s, mentioning that he began his journey, while still in Year 7, with fortnightly Year 11 Chemistry classes with Dr Alan Huffadine. A star student from day one, Mr Lamb noted, “His mark wasn’t too bad at 98%.”
This was the beginning of Johnathan’s streak of success as he then proceeded to achieve four A’s and one B at Cambridge AS Level, and five A*’s (A-Star) and two A’s at Cambridge A2 level. Furthermore, Johnathan managed to complete three University of Auckland papers 2; all graded A+; all gained at his Year 12 level, technically Year 11 by age.
Johnathan is a well-rounded student, having achieved both Cultural and Academic Full-Colours. He was a member of the Scholars’ Common Room, Robotics club and the Model United Nations programme, as well as a co-captain of the school Maths Olympiad squad.
He saw particular success in Maths Olympiad, having been selected to represent the country as part of the New Zealand representative team at the annual international competition. He received an honourable mention at the most recent competition for achieving a perfect score in two of the six challenging problems and missing out on a bronze medal by a single point.
Johnathan is also committed to serving others, participating in the College Community Service programme, Reading in Schools programme as well as tutoring his fellow students.
As a result of his stellar work, Johnathan received interviews at numerous prestigious universities including Cambridge University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He plans to pursue a degree in mathematics or computer science and hopes to become a computer programmer in the future. We wish Johnathan the best of luck as he ventures on to the next stage of his learning. We’re sure that this will not be the last we hear from the remarkable young academic!
Callum Sng (Marsden, 2015-19)
