Academic Excellence 

Tournament of Minds

Our focus for Term Three is the Tournament of Minds (TOM) competition. This year we have five teams who have just six weeks to find a solution to their chosen challenge chosen from the STEM, Arts, Social Sciences categories. The students must research, write a script and prepare a skit that presents their solution. The team must make all props, costumes, music and ICT by themselves.  A big ask in a short time!

The students will need to present their solutions to the challenges to a panel of judges at Edith Cowan, Joondalup on Saturday 6 September. On this day they will also participate in a short Spontaneous challenge. 

Students had an incursion in Week 2 to introduce the challenges and finalising their teams. They spent time brainstorming ideas and making a start on their solutions. Students also learnt about the best way of forming an answer to an unseen Spontaneous challenge using Edward De Bono’s Six Hats. The teams have been meeting regularly to work together to find their best solution to the long challenge and finding a creative way to present it. The students have made a brilliant start, and I can’t wait to see how their presentations pan out. Well done to all TOM students and best of luck for the competition!

Thank you to Ms Gillham, Mr Levy, Mrs Miranda and Ms Gray for being generous with their time to be facilitators for the teams. 

Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee

Do you know how to spell these words?

Knack – a particularly clever or skilful way of doing something successfully.

Enjoin – to order or strongly advise someone to do something.

A group of Year Seven and Year Eight students will be invited to participate in the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee this term. It is an online competition where the students must try to correctly spell thirty words in the fastest time. We look forward to offering the students this challenge.

Mrs L Cardenia

(Academic Excellence Coordinator)