Years 5 and 6 da Vinci Decathlon

The da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition hosted by Knox Grammar School designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. On Thursday 27 July, a Year 5 and a Year 6 team competed in the competition across 10 disciplines: Engineering, Mathematics and Chess, Code Breaking, Art and Poetry, Science, English, Ideation, Creative Producers, Cartography, and Legacy.

Each team consisted of eight girls selected for their ability to think logically, creatively and reflectively during problem-solving as well as their reliability when collaborating and taking on different roles for different tasks. Throughout the day, the girls practised their skills in team spirit as they competed against over 150 schools across Australia. They were challenged to be resourceful, remain open-minded, respectively listen, and remain resilient as they worked towards group goals.

Well done to the Year 5 Team: Anara Murugesan, Octavia Kirchner, Serafina Kwok, Audrey Park, Aerin Murphy, Susanna Brown, Alexandra Narev and Claire Tesvic.

Year 5 girls placed in the top 15 in Cartography out of 71 teams.

Congratulations is also extended to the Year 6 Team: Olivia Liu, Anna Slack, Angelina Wang, Ava Pepper, Charlotte Lowe, Alice Cameron, Eve Stewart and Anja Baker.

The Year 6 girls placed in the top 10 for English and the top 15 in Science out of 83 teams.

Some reflections of the day:

A memorable moment was the giant gong the event coordinators rang at the end of each challenge. The noise was ear-splitting as everyone knew this signalled the end of the session. Relieved, all the students let out a huge scream! – Alexandra, Octavia and Aerin

We learned how to manage our time better. Even though we were allocated two papers each, we ended up working together as we helped each other meet the deadlines. – Anara and Claire

The most memorable part was in the last few minutes of each discipline and everyone was frantically running around and helping each other. – Ava and Anja

The highlight of the day was working together to complete our papers and solving the riddles in the codebreaking paper. – Serafina and Audrey

Nada Siljanovska and Gabriela Grocott
da Vinci Decathlon Coordinators