Logan Park pupils excel in NZ exams
AN insatiable hunger for knowledge has been rewarded with top marks in national examinations for three Logan Park High School pupils.
This week, year 10 pupil Bill Campbell learned he received the highest score in New Zealand for the International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) digital technology exam, and year 11 pupil Megan Macdiarmid gained the top mark in the country for the ICAS English exam.
Meanwhile, year 9 pupil Alexander Sun received the highest mark in the year 9 University of Canterbury Mathematics Competition.
The top maths pupils in about 400 schools across the country participate in the competition.
The trio were delighted, but somewhat surprised by their academic success.
‘‘I thought I had done well in the exam, but I missed a few questions, so I didn’t expect to be top in New Zealand,’’ Alexander said.
Coprincipal Kristan Mouat said all three were very high achievers.
‘‘They motivate themselves and they are genuinely excited about coming to school each day, because they want to learn new stuff.
‘‘They just love learning.’’ Bill has won national robotics titles in RoboCup competitions for the past two years.
Megan was recently accepted into the New York Academy of
Sciences Junior Academy which encourages young people to come up with innovative solutions to society’s challenges by advancing scientific research, education and policy.
And Alexander is studying NCEA level 1 maths this year — something normally done by year 11 pupils.
The trio said the secret to their academic success was to feed their curiosity.
If they want to know how something works, or how to do something, they research it.
And when it came to exams, they set aside time in their days to ‘‘absorb more information’’.