Academic Achievement – NCEA 2018
It is my honour to announce the top achievers in our Senior Years for 2018. The 2018 Dux is Ms Eleanor Tomkins, and Joint Proxime Accessit is Ms Jessica Alexander and Ms Michaela Duerre. These fine students have been exceptional in 2018 and richly deserve these awards. 

We held a whole school “Welcome” Assembly on Thursday where we were able to acknowledge our other top achievers for 2018.  

Other high achieving students in NCEA in 2018 are:

Level 3

Level 2

 Level 1 

Our pre term newsletter has been sent today. Find it here

All Year 9 and 10 students start at Mercury Bay Area School on Monday 4th February 2019.

The procedure for the day is as follows:

Students new to our school will meet at 8:45 a.m. at the flagpole outside the front of the school where they will be taken to the hall. Students who attended Mercury Bay Area School in Year 8 and 9 are to meet in the school hall at 8:45 a.m. Parents/Guardians are welcome.

A whakatau welcome to all will occur and then year 9 and 10 students go to the Hei block courtyard.

Introduction and explanation of day’s activities and then the students will be divided into Learning Groups.

Students will go with their Learning Coach to their new homeroom. This is an opportunity for the students to be introduced to their class and teacher and to know which rooms their classes will take place in.

We will re-assemble at the Hei block courtyard again at approximately 9.45am to begin the walk to Hilton Park. Morning tea will then be at 10:00am. The activities will be based at the park all day where toilet facilities / changing rooms are available.

Over the day tasks will be undertaken in Learning Groups to help them get to know each other. The tasks will involve a range of challenges which are designed to get the students working together to develop their co-operative and team skills. The activities will be wide ranging from thinking skills to activities which are more physical. All activities will link back to the New Zealand Curriculum and the Key Competencies i.e. Thinking, Managing Self, Relating to Others and Participating and Contributing, as well as our Middle Years philosophy of thinking for ourselves through thinking with others.

We will return to school before 3:00 to enable bus students to catch the buses home.

Remember: No school uniform is required on Monday, but will be necessary from the following day - February 5th. Students should bring hats, sunblock, togs, towel and lunch, water bottle, pen, medications as needed. Rolls will be taken during the day for health and safety reasons.

Any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the year 9/10 deans through school or at the following email addresses:

Y9 Dean Jaimy Goble - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Y10 Dean, Pete Davy- This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The dates for start-up for 2019 are below:
**Our school office will be open from Monday 21st January 2019 from 9:00am to 3:00pm.**

**Appointments for New Enrolments
The Deputy and Assistant Principals along with Senior Deans will be available over the holiday period from Wednesday, 23rd January. For appointments please contact the school office. (07) 866 5916

Our latest newsletter has just been emailed.  You can find it here - 

MBAS Newsletter Term 4 Week 9 - 14 December 2018

Good morning, our weekly newsletter can be found here

Good morning, our weekly newsletter can be found here.

The University of Auckland has released its annual list of 40 exceptional graduates under the age of 40.

We are pleased to advise that one of these outstanding individuals are a former pupil of Mercury Bay Area School: Black Fern Eloise Blackwell.

Eloise is the first professional rugby player to be named one of the University of Auckland’s 40 under 40 exceptional alumni.

Now in its second year, the annual 40 under 40 list celebrates the high achievers and game changers who are making a significant contribution in their fields, all before their 40th birthday.

Eloise grew up on Great Barrier Island and went to Mercury Bay Area School for her secondary schooling, before completing a Bachelor of Physical Education at the University of Auckland. As well as playing elite level sport, she also teaches PE and Health at Epsom Girls Grammar, where she is passionate about influencing the next generation of sportswomen to wear the silver fern.

“I constantly have students asking about my sporting career and what they can do to become a better athlete. I want to empower my students to achieve their goals and dreams and realise that with a bit a hard work and determination anything is possible,” Eloise says.

The annual 40 under 40 list recognises that many of the highest achievers who studied at the University of Auckland are making huge contributions be it to business, technology or a social good before the age of 40.

It is quite an achievement to be recognised on the list given the University of Auckland graduates some 10,000 students each year.

We hope that the inclusion of Eloise on the 40 Under 40 list is an inspiration to your students, and we welcome you to share this news with your school community.

The full 40 Under 40 list for 2018 is available here.

Morena! Our weekly newsletter has just been sent and can be found here.

Our school offers specialist music lessons in flute, clarinet,vocals, saxophone, drum, guitar, bass guitar and keyboard. These lessons are highly sought after! Lessons are often over-subscribed and places fill very quickly.

If you would like your child to take part in these lessons, please click the hyperlinks below (for each instrument) or if you have received a hardcopy of this letter please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for the links to register.  We will confirm our ability to offer lessons to your child by the end of Week 1 in 2019, and payment in advance for Term 1 will need to be made immediately on acceptance of the lessons in order to keep the space. We are also happy to accept a payment schedule on request.

Returning students must re-enroll and complete these forms - we do not automatically re-enroll as we do not know if your child wants to continue, will be coming back to MBAS etc. etc.

As the lessons are so highly sought after, it is essential that your child’s fees are paid termly in advance, or that you arrange regular payments in order to pay it off by the end of the year. Additionally, if a student misses too many lessons without explanation, their place will be offered to another student. It is the student’s responsibility to get themselves to their lessons on time. Our teachers do their best to remind students, but ultimately it is their responsibility.

Please note, students in Years 3-6 are only allowed to do one instrument. Students Year 7 and above may do more than one instrument after consultation with the tutors.

Drum Lessons - Years 3-13

Flute and Clarinet Lessons - Years 4-13

Saxophone Lessons - Year 4-13

Guitar and Bass Lessons - Years 4 -13

Keyboard Lessons - Year 3 - 13

Vocal Lessons - Year 4 - 13

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any queries at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Kind regards,

Dave Mulholland

HOD Music

Mercury Bay Area School

Congratulations to all our prize winners for 2019. Below is a copy of the programme a few photos.

Our weekly school newsletter can be found here

On Thursday 1st November we celebrated the effort and achievements of our senior students with a certificate assembly. Merit and excellence certificates were awarded to students that have excelled throughout the year. Unfortunately we are unable to include these  in our Senior Prizegiving, due to the shear size and number of prizes. Below is a list of the awards and some photos.

We have also included a number of sporting achievements that deserve recognition also.

Congratulations to you all!

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Our latest newsletter can be found here

Please find our weekly newsletter here

Our last newsletter for the term has just gone out. Find a copy here

Our weekly newsletter can be found here

Thanks to the Senior A Netball team for their awesome FUNdraiser a couple of weeks ago. The Year 3-6 students had a hula of a time! Here are some pictures from the disco event.

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Happy Friday! Please find our weekly newsletter here.

Our weekly school newsletter has been sent today. Please find a copy here.

Our weekly newsletter is available here.

As you know, this year the Middle Years are exploring new ways of reporting to parents. At mid year, we held parent/ student/ teacher learning conversations rather than sending out written reports. These conversations were based on the Middle Years' vision of the sort of skills, knowledge and dispositions we are trying to develop in our students. Before the interviews parents were invited to fill out a form that gave their perceptions of their child's development in relation to the Middle Years' vision. Students and teachers also filled out the same form. 

The majority of the feedback we received from these learning conversations was very positive. However, many parents thought the language in the form contained too much "teacher jargon" and was difficult to make sense of. As a result we have re-drafted the form (see attached document) and would welcome your feedback on it.

If you get a chance to look at it please email your thoughts to Ally Bull (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), or place your feedback via this google form - https://goo.gl/forms/H8qUWxd8XIqebx7Q2. If you would prefer to meet in a group with other interested parents to provide feedback please also let me know and we will arrange a meeting time.

Kind regards
Ally Bull
Deputy Principal - Middle Years