Academic Excellence

Tournament of Minds Success at ECU Joondalup

Our school proudly sent three teams to compete in the Tournament of Minds at Edith Cowan University's Joondalup campus, showcasing outstanding creativity, teamwork and problem-solving across STEM, Social Sciences and the Arts.

Each team spent six weeks preparing for the challenge, working collaboratively to develop and refine a 10-minute presentation addressing a complex, open-ended problem in their discipline. Along the way, students had to balance research, creativity and stagecraft — all while keeping their solution a closely guarded secret ahead of competition day.

But the preparation was only half the challenge. On the day, teams also faced the notorious "spontaneous challenge" a surprise problem requiring quick thinking, resourcefulness and calm under pressure, tackled with no advance warning and only minutes to prepare.

We're delighted to announce that our Social Sciences team impressed the judges enough to progress to the next round of competition. This next stage raised the stakes considerably, with students taking on an intensive three-hour challenge that tested their stamina, ingenuity and ability to work as a team under sustained pressure. While the team ultimately did not progress further, they represented our school with distinction, and their performance reflected months of hard work, resilience and genuine intellectual curiosity.

Congratulations are also due to our STEM and Arts teams, who tackled their own presentations and spontaneous challenges with confidence and flair. Every student involved should be proud of what they achieved — Tournament of Minds is renowned for pushing students well beyond the standard classroom experience, demanding creativity, critical thinking and collaboration under real time pressure.

A huge thank you to the Mrs Cardenia and Ms Gillham who mentored and supported the teams throughout the six weeks of preparation, and to the families who cheered them on at ECU Joondalup.

Well done to all our Tournament of Minds participants you've shown, once again, that academic excellence is alive and thriving at our school.

Mr M Sligar

Teacher