Blog

Year 9 Academic Challenge Day

The students who participated in the Year 9 Academic Challenge Day, came away buzzing having really enjoyed the experience. This event is significant in that, in addition to the academic rigor, students work in teams where most of the members are from other schools. In addition, students also have the opportunity to participate in ‘Off the Cuff’ public speaking, where they are given no time to prepare a 60 second talk on a topic given to them, which they present ‘off the cuff’ in front of all those attending – a different type of challenge altogether.

This year, I am delighted that some of our students were in the team who won the English, engineering and mathematics disciplines, and one team came 3^rd overall. Congratulations to all those who attended and participated so well in their teams.

Da Vinci Decathlon

The da Vinci Decathlon is an event held every year for students who would benefit from a day of academic challenge. It is designed to stimulate the minds of school students, by presenting each school team with events in ten different disciplines, including engineering, mathematics, code-breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography and general knowledge.

Tintern Grammar entered one team in each of the Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 events in May 2019. The students worked in their teams to be creative, take risks, solve stimulating problems, design and plan constructions, collaborate together and generally use their collective intellect for the day. Apart from being immersed in a vibrant learning environment for the day, we have several achievements to be proud of, including our Year 7 team coming 3^rd in the mathematics challenge and 1^st in general knowledge, with an overall place of 4^th out of 25 teams. Additionally, our Year 8 students come 2^nd in the science challenge. The intention of the day is to provide students with rigorous learning experiences, and this aim is always achieved. Congratulations to all those involved.

The Horizon Program aims to enrich, extend and enhance the learning of highly able students who possess special talents and interests in a particular area of the curriculum. This program facilitates the implementation of extension programs within a differentiated classroom, as well as offering a range of highly challenging enhancement and extension activities beyond the classroom. Learn more about the Horizon Program.