A large number of the brightest girls and boys from Years 5 to 11 across the State participated in the NSW da Vinci Decathlon this week. The Decathlon celebrates the academic gifts of young people by providing a stimulating and challenging competition run in the spirit of an Olympic Decathlon. The day is divided into 3 sessions and within each session there were a number of tasks running concurrently. Students competed in teams of 8 across 10 disciplines: Engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, english, ideation, creative producers, cartography and general knowledge.
The da Vinci Decathlon highlights the value of collaboration and a group approach to problem solving, thus those teams with strong interpersonal skills, in addition to strong intellect, tend to be the most successful.
Mazal tov to all our teams, who performed well and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Special mention to our Year 8 team, who finished 3rd in the Ideation section and 2nd overall, out of 70 teams – a wonderful performance. Our Year 9 team finished 2nd in the Creative Producers section. Year 6 placed 3rd in Engineering and Year 5 placed 3rd in General Knowledge.