Former South School student offered two university scholarships

The nine Nga Tawa students have been awarded scholarships from universities in Auckland, Wellington and Otago. Dannevirke's Bridget Bone, head girl at the school is front, third from left.

Dannevirke's Bridget Bone, a former student at South School, is one of nine Nga Tawa School students to receive tertiary scholarships totalling $121,000.

Bone, the daughter of Chris and Cath Bone, is the head girl at Nga Tawa School in Marton. She was offered two scholarships, one from the University of Otago and another from the University of Auckland.

"She has accepted the $35,000 option from Otago University, while turning down the $20,000 scholarship from Auckland for next year, after they arrived within half an hour of each other recently in the recent school holidays.

As you can imagine there was quite a bit of jumping around and yelling occurring in the house at the time," Dad, Chris Bone, told the Dannevirke News.

"Nga Tawa School has done so much to help the girls achieve, with more than 20 per cent of the Year 13s obtaining a university scholarship for next year.

"Speaking with Bridget's biology teacher (a recent arrival this year from Auckland), her words were, 'had one of the big Auckland Schools achieved at that rate, they would have had the story on the front page of the Herald'.

Everyone is so proud of the kids."

Four other Nga Tawa School students heading to Otago have decided to study health science with Bone.

"There will be so many awesome new people to meet, but it will be really cool to know some people at the start," Bone said.

"I've studied all of the sciences. Over the years, I've found that's what I'm interested in and is more of my passion."

Bone is unsure what career path she wants to take at this stage, but is looking forward to being exposed to everything on offer.

She said that being the head girl of Nga Tawa was a full-on, but rewarding experience.
"The opportunity to work with all year groups across the school has been really cool and a good way to meet lots of new people and get to know all of the girls on a different level," she said.

However, wherever she ends up, she'll remain a small town girl, her dad said.
"That's the neat thing and she's so proud to have attended Dannevirke South School."