Academic Excellence

Tournament of Minds

OUR Academic Excellence students recently participated in the Tournament of Minds (TOM). The four teams worked tirelessly on their solutions to their selected challenge. This included doing research, writing scripts, making props and costumes, ICT and preparing a skit to present their solutions before a panel of judges.

Two teams chose to attempt the STEM challenge, GOLD RUSH, where they each built a moving platform to display a large nugget of gold. They also included ICT to explain the maths behind their platform design. Another team chose the Arts challenge, WHO ARE YOU? For this challenge, the students needed to use clues (body painting, jewellery, clothing) to identify a mystery person at a police station who could not talk. They also needed discover a secret hidden message. The fourth team chose a Social Sciences challenge, THE CIRCLES OF TIME. The team had to discover remains of a historic circle. They needed to explain what it was made of, where it was found, its significance and why it should be preserved.

We are so proud of what the students achieved. Credit must go to the students for their dedication to the competition and to their teams. The students found creative ways to be able to meet up to work on their project, whether it was meeting at school or by using Teams to have meetings from home. They were dedicated to finding the best solution to their challenge and way to present it.

The slightly nervous students presented their fantastic solutions to the challenges in front of a panel of judges at Edith Cowan, Joondalup on Saturday 27 August. They did an excellent job, especially given that it was the first time for many of them and they did not know what to expect. They received some very positive feedback from the judges. 

A huge thank you to Mrs Miranda, Ms Lim and Miss MaGee for taking on the role of being facilitators for the teams; to Mr Dowling for coming to ECU to cheer the teams on and to our wonderful staff who assisted the students in many ways.

Well done and best of luck for next year!

STEM – The Golden Fish                                

“Tournament of Minds was a very entertaining and enjoyable project that my group, 'The Golden Fish', were committed to. Despite the intense and demanding nature of the 6-week challenge, we achieved successful results through diligent work and dedication. Despite the long and tiresome process, the experience at the university itself was memorable. It was a truly memorable day at ECU and we will always remember it fondly. The long challenge was very well done and everyone put the maximum effort they could into the performance. The spontaneous challenge could have been improved on, but either way, the group's performance was of a high standard. We thank Mrs Miranda for her excellent guidance during the project. I also thank all my group members for the amazing effort and determination that they showed throughout the Tournament of Minds.”

Gyanbi Shrestha (Captain)

STEM – The Finer Miners

“Preparing for TOM was a little nerve-wracking. It took quite a while to put things and ourselves together but in the end it was worth it. We sacrificed a lot of time for the performance. On the day of the performance, everything went smoothly, and we received positive feedback from the judges. Overall, everyone was happy, and I will join this amazing experience again next year.

Nicholas Nguyen (Captain)

Social Sciences – Lost Sands of Time

“Tournament of Minds was a one-of-a-kind experience, being able to work together and showcase our skills. Our team, Lost Sands of Time, was comprised of 2 Yr 7's (Alex P and Merrick D), 4 Yr 8's (Emmeline A, Elizabeth B, Melvin S. and me) and a Yr 9 student (Sachin W). We selected a Social Sciences challenge and worked well towards our performance at ECU Joondalup. Despite not moving forward into the finals, we all tried our best and it was a great way of learning from our mistakes.  Without the support and guidance from Mrs Cardenia our team teacher, this wouldn't have been possible.”

Ann Baiju (Captain)

The Arts - KARENFC

“Tournament of Minds was an amazing and one-of-a-kind experience for me and my team, KARENFC. The challenge we did was in the Arts and was about us as a team trying to figure out where a mysterious woman is from. KARENFC chose the country Thailand to research, we made a model and created a play revolving around finding out this mysterious woman’s identity. We found out about Thailand’s cultural history, their weddings, their traditional dances, and their meanings. Creating a model, and clothes for our model, and creating a script required a lot of teamwork and we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the results we have now if we didn’t have the amazing team members and teamwork.”

Nyree Nolan (Captain)

Australian Geography Competition

Earlier this year about 100 selected students from yr8 – 11 students tested their geographical skills and knowledge against nearly 70 000 students from all around Australia in the 2022 Australian Geography competition. The competition aims to encourage student interest in Geography and to reward student excellence.

Our students proved to have some great geographical knowledge, receiving 9 distinctions and 3 high distinctions. A huge congratulations to these students! They all received their certificates at this week’s assembly. 

Year 7 Homework Help/ Peer Mentor Program

Year 7 Homework Help will return again in Term 4 on Thursdays from 3:30 – 4:30pm in the Library. All Year 7 students are welcome to attend. Possible aspects that students may seek assistance for include help with homework for any subject, revision of topics they are finding difficult and general organisation (diary, locker, etc). All they need to do is ask! Thank you to the Year 9 Mentors that are volunteering their time to be available to assist the Year 7s.

Mrs L Cardenia

(Academic Excellence Coordinator)