Published on: 21 March 2024





Last week, students across our Preparatory and Senior School participated in the da Vinci Decathlon at the University of Western Australia. The competition sees some of the brightest students in WA compete with their peers from other schools in their respective Year groups and places a particular emphasis on higher order thinking skills, problem solving and creativity. The teams of eight work together across 10 disciplines: engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography and legacy. The event was fantastically facilitated by our neighbours Methodist Ladies’ College, who are the State Chapter School and, as such, hold the state events for this National and International phenomenon.

Our selected Senior School teams competed across three days, achieving the below results:

Year 7 – 2nd overall, 1st in Mathematics and Codebreaking, 3rd in Science & Ideation

Year 8 – 1st overall, 1st in Mathematics, Science, and Codebreaking, 3rd in Engineering

Year 9 – 1st in Mathematics, Codebreaking, and Legacy

Year 10 – 2nd overall, 2nd in Science and Geography

The Year 8 team’s results will see them travel to Sydney in June to compete in the National competition, a hugely exciting result for the students and School. Director for the Centre of Excellence Lachlan Hall managed the Senior School teams, with Director of Studies Mahendra Vaswani and Assistant Director of Studies Dr Holly Rose in attendance to support the students.

“As with all of our opportunities, the Centre for Excellence wanted to offer the selected students an opportunity to access higher-level learning enrichment. I am extremely proud of our Year 7 to 10 teams’ performance in the da Vinci Decathlon. The boys showed outstanding academic prowess married with enthusiastic, mature, and inclusive conduct across both days of competition”, said Mr Hall.

The Preparatory School students followed suit, competing on the subsequent three days and similarly demonstrating fantastic academic ability.

Year 5 – 1st overall, 1st place certificate in Mathematics, 2nd place in Cartography and Creative Producers, 3rd place in English and Code Breaking

Year 6 – 2nd overall, 1st place certificate in Cartography, 2nd place in English, Engineering, and Legacy, 3rd place in Code Breaking and Creative Producers

“The competition was a great opportunity for the students in our Year 5 and 6 teams focus on collaboration, persistence, and communication whilst celebrating their academic gifts in a stimulating and challenging competition. I was thoroughly impressed with their teamwork, and it was a pleasure to watch them put their minds together to problem solve”, commented Co-ordinator of the Centre for Excellence Brooke Siegmann, who was in charge of the Preparatory School teams.

Congratulations to all participants on their wonderful achievements and for proudly representing Christ Church at this prestigious event. Pictured L-R are teams Year 5 to 10.