da Vinci Decathlon

The da Vinci Decathlon is a very challenging and prestigious competition in which our students had to complete complex tasks in 10 different subject areas, namely Science, Mathematics, English, Art and Poetry, Engineering, Drama, Ideation, Cartography, Codebreaking and General Knowledge. Top schools in Perth attended this competition at the University of Western Australia and for the first time in our College’s history, we won the Year 9/10 competition. These students have now been invited by Knox Grammar School to participate in the national competition in Sydney in June.

Congratulations to Jake Battle, Grace Kelly, Jake Mawson, Isobel Millward, Emily Penhale, Lunae Pienaar, Phillip Potgieter and Esther Ward on this outstanding achievement.

Our Year 8 team seems to be following in the seniors’ footsteps. They also did exceptionally well and finished 2^nd in the Year 8 competition and we will definitely see more excellent results from this talented group of students in the future.

Team members are: Amber Evans, Jade Evans, Gabrielle Hawkes, Riley Jackson, Daniel Lummis, Chelsea McAuliffe, Leo McGill and Lillian Walker.

We are also very proud of our Year 7 team consisting of Zac Anstey, Alex Bogdanich, Connor Brown, Jess Kimber Nate King, Natalia Rodrigues, Francois Vermaak and Benjamin Ward who excelled in the Mathematics, English and General Knowledge competitions.

Crisis Point

Two of our Year 10 students, Hukambir Kohli and Jennifer Gamble represented the College in the UN Youth’s Crisis Point competition. Crisis Point is a crisis simulation competition where students attempt to solve a pertinent security threat facing the world today through diplomacy, negotiation, and compromise. It puts you into the shoes of real-world figures from the United States cabinets that respond to the highest level of security threats.

Jenny assumed the role of National Director of Intelligence and her role was to work within the National Executive Community, specifically with the president, to manage and control the other departments or cabinets. Hukam was the Undersecretary for Economic Growth and his role was to work within the State Department to manage the international relations of America.

Both students thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity and found it very valuable for their personal growth:

“Through the Crisis Point activity, we have achieved an insight into the reality of what it is like for a government to come face to face with a crisis and what they can do to resolve it. We have gained important diplomacy and negotiation skills in order to attain a common ground to achieve what we set out to do. We also had the opportunity to become friends with people that we would never have talked to.” - Hukambir Kohli and Jennifer Gamble

Sonja van Aswegen

Head of Secondary Learning Enhancement