Our Lady of Grace School in North Beach has again outperformed and outsmarted its competitors in this year’s Tournament of Minds, a problem-solving competition for teams of students from both primary and secondary years.
This year, a team of seven students from the school became State Champions in the maths engineering primary division.
This gave them the opportunity to represent Western Australia at the Australasian Pacific Final in Melbourne on 18 October 2014, where they were decorated with an Honours title that continued the school’s history of success in this competition.
The Tournament of Minds competition begins at regional level, with students from four regions of Western Australia competing for a spot in the state final. Those who succeed at state level proceed to the national finals.
This year, Our Lady of Grace entered four teams in the Tournament of Minds competition, one for each of the following divisions: applied technology, language literature, social sciences and maths engineering.
The most successful of these, the maths engineering team, was made up of Years 5 and 6 students, all of whom were selected for the competition after preliminary auditioning of their creativity skills, learning strategies and ability to work as a team.
The competition challenges students with problem-solving tasks and asks them to think for themselves; improvisation and spontaneity are indicators of creativity and can gain significant points from the judges.
The challenges range from writing and directing plays to building machines and devices with a limited number of tools. At the national finals, the maths engineering group was locked away in a room for three hours (an adult supervisor is present to ensure their safety) with some instructions, a box of utensils including straws, pop-sticks, erasers and lacky bands, and left to their own devices.
The students were required to come up with a solution to a specific problem in the allotted time and were judged on both creativity and team work.
When asked how they had benefited from the Tournament of Minds, the students spoke of a significant boost in their overall confidence as well as an improved ability to work as a team. “The Tournament of Minds forces you to work with others and to perform in front of other people,” the students said.
“This made us become more confident and has also taught us to speak up for ourselves,” they agreed.
In regard to the extra hours of homework they dedicate towards the tournament, another student stated that, “we don’t really see it as extra homework, because the team work aspect of the Tournament of Minds is actually fun.
“We enjoy it. Meeting up during the weekend to work as a group brought us together and we soon realised that we really enjoyed each other’s company.”
Our Lady of Grace has a history of involvement, achievement and success in the Tournament of Minds.
The school has been State Champion in maths and engineering for three years and has been Australasian winner in language and literature in 2011 and 2012. So what is it about the school that brings its name to such heights of academic excellence?
The final word was again given to the students, who praised the school’s “gifted and talented program” along with the unrelenting support of their teachers.
Given the pride, professionalism and care which Principal Chris Kenworthy and the staff at Our Lady of Grace take in preparing these students for the tournament, it seems that the school’s name is bound to reappear on upcoming Tournament of Minds trophies.