Creative Edge Thinking Challenge

We are very proud of all our Creative Edge Thinking Challenge (former Opti-MINDS) students who did extremely well in this year’s State competition. They worked very hard on their challenges for 6 weeks and put in extra hours before and after school as well as giving up many of their lunch times to produce their solution performances.

Congratulations to the following teams:

Our Year 9.4 team won the state title for the Society and Environment division. This team took a very serious approach and portrayed the inner turmoil in someone’s mind when they contemplate the meaning of life. This team also won the Creativity Award for the entire competition. Congratulations to Gabrielle, Riley, Jared, Zac, Layla and Lillian on their achievement.

The Year 9.3 team consisting of Edie, Jason, Kaitlin, Brock, Mia and Emma won the Science and Engineering state title with an outstanding humorous performance. Part of their solution performance was to design and launch a trebuchet successfully towards a target which was symbolic of the battle between good and evil.

Our Year 8 team placed third in the state in the Science and Engineering division with an interesting Monopoly battle symbolising poor decisions we make in life. Well done to Katie, London, Lucy, Jess, Rosie, Aliyah Sian.

Our Year 7 team did not place in the top 3, but they presented a flawless performance addressing the battle between peace vs violence. Congratulations to Emma, Lachlan, Thomas, Logan, Hannah and Matthew on their hard work and perseverance.

Future Problem Solving National Competition

Our Future Problem Solving students did exceptionally well this year and 5 of our teams were selected to represent Western Australia and the College at the Future Problem Solving National competition which was held at St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School due to travel restrictions.

For the actual competition teams received a hypothetical, futuristic scenario on the topic of Poverty and used their research to generate solutions on what can be done globally to assist those suffering from extreme poverty and decrease the adverse impact of it on future generations. Students were graded on their correct application of the Future Problem Solving process, their use of cited research and their creative originality. After completing the six-step process in two hours, students then immediately began to work on a second competition called "Presentation of Action Plan" in which they illustrated their final solution by preparing and performing a skit.

Our teams did an excellent job at the Nationals and we are incredibly proud of them for reaching this stage of the competitive program with their high level of global and futuristic thinking.

Our students who qualified for the Nationals were:

Year 9: Nicole, Gabrielle, Eshika, Chelsea, Arwen, Caitlyn S, Nicolette, Layla and Lillian.

Year 10: Toby, Trent, Joshua B, Xanthe, Taya, Chamudi, Isabel, Harry, Caitlyn L, Jake, Emily, Shakira and Esther.

Sonja van Aswegen

Head of Secondary Learning Enhancement