Working together to sharpen the mind

Da Vinci teams from Years 5, 6, 7, and 8, met for four hours on Sunday, 24 March, engaging in challenging tasks in preparation for the upcoming da Vinci Decathlon competition in Term 2, 2024.

The da Vinci Decathlon, held each year at Knox School, is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. Students compete in teams of eight across 10 disciplines: Engineering, Mathematics, Code Breaking, Art and Poetry, Science, English, Ideation, Creative Producers, Cartography, and Legacy. The Decathlon is designed to celebrate the academic gifts of Australian youth by providing a stimulating and challenging competition run in the spirit of an Olympic Decathlon.

For the inaugural time, students from both Cranbrook Junior and Senior Schools united in preparation for the competition. This collaborative effort proved to be a profoundly enriching experience for all involved. Not only did students enhance their personal and teamwork skills, but they also built meaningful connections across year levels. The collaboration not only bolstered the seniors’ leadership abilities but also empowered the juniors with guidance and support, fostering a sense of friendship and shared achievement. The reflections below from some of our participants serve as a poignant testament to the impact of this collaborative endeavour.

I really enjoyed the da Vinci Decathlon prep day last Sunday. I loved pushing myself on the papers and at the end, I felt satisfied with the work I had done and what we had achieved as a team. It was valuable to learn how the Y7 and Y8 students prepared individually and as a team for the day. I think one of the biggest challenges we encountered was the first half where we split into different teams with the Year 7s. This was a challenge because of the different roles that we had to play. It was a real learning experience to see the time needed to decide who should do what paper. I have learned we need to do this before we go into the competition. Tully Sharpe (Y5)

During Sunday’s session, it became apparent that our team’s organisation was not as effective as it should have been. This made it challenging to respond to questions that required multiple documents, leading to unnecessary time spent searching for them. Additionally, there was confusion regarding task assignments, resulting in an uneven distribution of workload across different papers. Remembering to apply our majors and minors would have facilitated better coordination in task delegation. Kaspar Buck (Y6)

Despite these challenges, our team demonstrated strong collaboration, with each member contributing unique perspectives. This diversity of viewpoints enhanced our ability to comprehend questions and expedited our problem-solving process. Improved clarity regarding our majors and minors would undoubtedly have facilitated more efficient task allocation. Overall, while there were areas for improvement, our teamwork was commendable and we successfully navigated through various challenges together. Ethan Chang (Y8)

The event of helping the Junior School students was a very memorable experience. The day consisted of teaching students who were new to the system and competition and giving tips to spend their time wisely and working well within a team. I learned from the younger years that we should try as many possibilities as possible before the time runs out. The event was very engaging and memorable. Darren Cai (Y7)

I have greatly learned about how the use of teamwork is greatly effective, even when in teams with other year groups, with whom we had to pair up and use our knowledge to help the younger years. Logan Hsiao (Y8)

Christina Koika-Celllini
Assessment and Data Co-ordinator P-6