This term, I have commenced interviews with the Year 7 2020 cohort. These interviews are an integral component of the transition program. In the interviews that I conduct with every Year 6 student prior to the student commencing Year 7 at St Catherine’s School, I outline the many extra-curricular opportunities that the School has on offer. The wide array of opportunities available to our students never ceases to amaze and is a testament to the School’s tenet of valuing all aspects of school life as vital contributors to educating students in a holistic manner.

One such example of an extra-curricular activity that extends and challenges our students is the Tournament of Minds. Last week, four students of the Year 7 cohort participated in this competition at Deakin University, Burwood along with three Year 8 students. The students trained for five weeks leading up to the competition and worked tirelessly to complete their project. Thank you to Mrs Kim Waters for providing the guidance and support to these students over the five week period and congratulations to the team for achieving Honours at the competition.

Below, some of the Year 7 students reflect on their participation in the competition.

“Tournament of Minds is a competition that contains different sections: STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Science), Language Literature, Social Science and Art. For our group – the DNAers, we chose STEM as our long term project. Our challenge was to make a machine that will collect DNA from an endangered animal and the machine had to turn around three times without us touching it. The process was hard and challenging but very interesting. Everyone in the group really enjoyed working together. We gathered together every Wednesday after school and some lunchtimes. After finishing our long term project, every group then needed to do a spontaneous task which needed to be completed in only five minutes, but we did not know the task until we got there on the day. In conclusion, this competition is a great experience and it was great fun – we are really looking forward to it next year.” – Xi (Sissi) Zheng and Qing Chun (Joanna) Yang.

“Tournament of Minds was a challenge for most of us, however, we eventually solved all our problem and struggles. I enjoyed how we got to work as a group and make the model, which took some time. I am proud of how everyone contributed to it and how staying until 6.00pm at school paid off, and how we got Honours. I would recommend this to other students in the future since it has thrilling opportunities and challenges.” – Jisu Yang.

A group of Years 7 and 8 St Catherine’s students participated in the Tournament of Minds competition at Deakin University.

 

 

Ms Kanako Yokouchi, Head of Year 7