Academic Excellence

Tournament of Minds

Our Academic Excellence students recently participated in the Tournament of Minds (TOM), with our three teams working tirelessly on their solutions to their selected challenge. This included doing research, writing scripts, making props and costumes, ICT and preparing a skit.

On Saturday 2 September, our students presented their fantastic solutions in front of a panel of judges at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Joondalup. 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. 

Thank you to Ms Melda Lim and Ms Linda Gillham for taking on the facilitator roles and to our wonderful staff who assisted the students in many ways.

In exciting news, the Banksy Ballerinas, made it into the finals. For the last two weeks, the students spent their recess and lunch times practicing and on Saturday 16 September, spent the whole day at ECU working on a three hour problem solving challenge, where they had to make musical instruments from a range of everyday materials, and a spontaneous challenge. They produced another humorous, yet thought provoking presentation, and are excited to try again next year. We're so proud of what they achieved!

Below are a few comments from participating students:

Social Sciences: Penicillin is Good

I was part of the Social Sciences team. Our challenge was Clash of the Ages, where we had to merge two items from the past and show how they changed the future. It was a lot of fun. We had to do a presentation, showing how the two items (penicillin and ancient Egyptian surgery tools) merged and what events they were part of. We had time travel, music and a consequence of the merge. The judges we had were nice and they gave us good feedback. I would like to do this again in future - Damanpreet Singh 

STEM: The Cocky Bennett

Participating in Tournament of Minds was a unique and rewarding experience, as this competition challenged my team in ways we hadn't anticipated. The problems we encountered were thought-provoking, and they pushed us to think creatively. It was a great opportunity to develop my teamwork and communication skills, as we had to coordinate our efforts effectively to solve complex problems. One of the most significant takeaways for us was the importance of resilience and adaptability. We faced obstacles along the way, and it became evident that there were areas where our team could have improved. These challenges taught us the value of perseverance and the importance of embracing challenges as opportunities for growth. I also appreciated the chance to show our creative thinking and problem-solving abilities to a wider audience. Presenting our solutions to the judges and other participants was both nerve-wracking and thrilling, and it taught us valuable lessons about public speaking and self-confidence. I'm grateful for the skills and knowledge we gained through this competition, and I look forward to applying them in my future academic and personal pursuits - Gyanbi Shrestha

Arts: Banksy Ballerinas

As captain of the Tournament of Minds team, the Banksy Ballerinas, I can confidently say that we have had a great experience in the tournament. Our first challenge was to create an immersive art experience in correspondence to a famous artist. We chose the famous street artist Banksy, along with his new artwork ‘the gymnast’ which adorns a bombed building in Ukraine. This challenge took place over six weeks, where we brainstormed and came up with the idea to represent the painting with words. We created collapsible boxes in the shape of houses, painted with positive and negative words and choreographed a dance and soundscape, that highlighted the detrimental nature of conflict, in a community and to especially children. With this challenge we got selected to go to the state finals, where we were chosen out of 1000 competitors. We were instructed to build musical instruments and create a skit about a society without music, linking music with the development of culture. With this challenge we decided to link musical sounds with sounds from nature, creating instruments that reflected the sounds of rain, thunder etc. Unfortunately, we did not progress to the national round, but we had a great experience and a really fun day. I am so proud of what our team achieved and can’t wait to see what we can accomplish in the future - Ariana Mecham

Mrs L Cardenia

(Mathematics Teacher and Academic Excellence Co-ordinator)