St Peter’s College

Language learning in Mandarin will equip our students to understand the culture of our largest trading partner in New Zealand.
So in many ways, learning Mandarin will be an essential add-on to the degree a person studies at university. Engineering plus Mandarin, Medicine plus Mandarin etc.

The launch of the Confucius Classroom was about celebrating the 500+boys from Year 7 studying Mandarin.
The main advantage for a boy studying Mandarin is about gaining a foothold in any future job market and about understanding a culture that is not his own.
Coincidentally, it is also about the more one looks outwardly the more one appreciates what is present. The more one understands another culture, the more one appreciates his own.

The Confucius Classroom deal includes several trips to China for boys, teaching support, resources and linkage with Chinese culture.
At the launch on Wednesday, the Senior Concert Band, along with Sam Verlinden (Year 12), performed the National Anthems of New Zealand and China, while the prayers and reading were spoken in English and Chinese. The speech of welcome by Sam Bailey (Year 12) was in Chinese and English.

…I hope the 2014 St Peter’s students are influenced toward the language and culture of China by learning Mandarin.
As a school we are grateful for the support from the Confucius Institute at The University of Auckland and Hanban (Chinese Government Agency).

Kieran Fouhy, Headmaster.