They were top of their class in 2019, and now they are confirmed as being among the top of all students in New Zealand.

Last week, four Nayland alumni, all Year 13 students from last year, were awarded ten scholarships between them. Merlyn Barrer got four scholarships overall with three of those being 'Outstanding Scholarships' (one level up from scholarship). This entitled him to also receive an 'Outstanding Scholar' award. Merlyn achieved his Outstanding Scholarship marks in Chemistry, Physics, and Earth and Marine Science. In fact, his scholarship mark in Earth and Marine Science was the top mark in the entire country for that scholarship paper. To top it off, he also got a regular scholarship in Calculus.

Matthew Edmonds, last year’s Palmer Award winner at Nayland College, also had a successful run with his scholarship exams, gaining scholarship in three subjects: Chemistry, Earth and Marine Science and Economics.

Two other Year 13 students from last year earned scholarships as well. Matthew Suter was awarded a scholarship in Chemistry and in Physics, while Eden Lawless earned a scholarship in Media Studies.

All four of them put their success partly down to the support and help they received from their teachers throughout the year. “I really need to give a lot of credit to the staff at Nayland College,” Matthew Suter said. “All my subjects where I sat Scholarships, all the teachers set aside time, they did tutorials, they helped us and they supported us,” he said.

For Merlyn, the enthusiasm of his teachers has played a big part in motivating him towards excellence. “Having good teachers helps you get more of a passion in the subject, so you actually want to learn and do the extra work for scholarship,” he said.

Eden puts his success down to his enjoyment of the subject matter he was exploring. “I was talking about the stuff that I was passionate about, that I knew a lot about,” he said. “That is what I like about the scholarship exams. If your heart and soul was in it, then you’re much more likely to get it and you can show off your top potential.”

The boys all admit though that their results also required a lot of hard work. For Matthew Edmonds, it meant being quite methodical in how he studied. “There was a lot of extra work towards the end of the year. I focused a lot on the scholarship side and had less of a focus on the (NCEA) level 3 exams. It is definitely good though to know the core of your subject though,” Matthew said.

The two Matthews and Merlyn are now heading to Christchurch to study engineering at Canterbury University. Eden is taking a gap year and then plans to study in Wellington, doing a course in film production.