Excellent final year at Iona College for Gisborne teen Zoe Abbott-Raggett

Gisborne teenager Zoe Abbott-Raggett with proud parents Kate Abbott and Dave Raggett after a brilliant final year at Iona College ended with multiple awards at the school's prizegiving, including joint runner-up to dux. Photo / Richard Furhoff Photography

A Gisborne teenager has overcome several learning disabilities, including dyslexia, to win multiple awards at the Iona College prizegiving.

Zoe Abbott-Raggett, the daughter of Gisborne couple Kate Abbott and Dave Raggett, will start at Otago University next year on the back of a brilliant final year at the Havelock North-based Iona.

The 18-year-old’s list of achievements were topped by jointly receiving the Jackson Cup for proxime accessit (runner-up to dux).

She also won the Athya Boarding Cup and Citizenship Award.

Zoe was presented Level 3 Principal’s awards for art, photography, classics, history and drama, and several NCEA Level 3 academic awards - joint winner of the Meade Writing Cup for English, joint winner of the Art Photography Cup, the Classical Studies Cup, Drama Cup and McGlashan Cup for history.

After struggling with reading and writing in her early schooling years, she was diagnosed with learning disorder dyslexia, development co-ordination disorder (formerly known as dyspraxia) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Zoe herself has written frankly about these - detailing her subsequent and ongoing experiences dealing with “my neurodiversity” and how she has been able to develop academically through the likes of special assessment conditions.

Throughout all the challenges, one thing has remained constant for the former Te Hapara School and Gisborne Intermediate student, who shifted to Iona College in Year 8 ...”I love learning.”

To end her secondary school years, Zoe has been sitting five NCEA Level 3 subject assessments and four NZQA scholarship assessments.

She was awarded a University of Otago New Frontiers Excellence Entrance Scholarship and will head to Dunedin next year to study for a Bachelor of Arts majoring in classics and anthropology and minoring in Latin and English.

Her dream career would be an archaeologist, classicist or working with antiquities.