Academic Excellence 

Micro Mathematicians

Our Year 8 and Year 9 high-ability students were recently invited to an excursion, run by the University of Melbourne, as part of the Victorian Challenge & Enrichment Series. This program enabled students to extend their mathematical thinking skills and problem-solving abilities.

Year 8 students learnt how new mathematics is made and about Optimisation. This workshop shared a recent invention by University of Melbourne mathematicians: a new kind of mathematical skeleton. Students worked collaboratively on creative geometric solutions, forming these skeletons for different polygons. This provided opportunities to discuss how the study of mathematics works in real-world applications and students learnt about its connection to computer science innovation. 

Here's what a few of our Year 8's had to say:

On Tuesday the 25th of March, some of the high-ability maths students in Year 8 participated in a workshop run by the University of Melbourne. The workshop was based on how to find the minimum obstacle skeleton. We had to find out the smallest number of lines to put in a shape so you couldn’t cut through it.  It was a lot of fun working in groups to figure out how many lines to draw on the different shapes. Thanks to Melbourne University for running this program; hopefully, they can come back and run more programs for the school in the future. 

- Charlotte Boyes, Isla Dunlop and Olivia Stark

Year 9 Mathematical Book Club

Many big questions—such as 'How do we know the number of individuals infected in a pandemic?'—require mathematical modelling. In the afternoon workshop, our Year 9 high-ability students developed and explored a mathematical model with something that isn’t usually considered mathematical: BOOKS! Students explored the correlation between the number of pages in their books and the number of words included, through modelling. 

Student feedback has been sought on these incursions as we plan for future excursions, incursions and masterclasses for our gifted students.

Year 7 Creativity in English

As part of their persuasive writing unit, the Year 7 SEAL students were asked to write a persuasive piece based on a prompt. Working in small teams, the students had fifteen to twenty minutes to come up with the most engaging, creative and persuasive response. Enticed by the glory of winning (and a small prize to go with it), the students came up with brilliant texts which were translated through interpretive dances, poems, rapping and traditional speeches. 

Well done SEALs!