A team of Perth students have won gold in a prestigious international academic contest that recently took place in the UK.
The Year 8 students from Methodist Ladies’ College (MLC) in Perth were crowned the champions of the official International da Vinci Decathlon, an academic enrichment competition run in the spirit of an Olympic Decathlon where teams of eight compete across 10 disciplines: Creative Producers, Mathematics, English, Art and Poetry, Science, Engineering, Ideation, Legacy, Cartography, and Code Breaking.
The MLC team placed in every one of the 10 disciplines, achieving first place in Creative Producers, English, Mathematics, Ideation, Art and Poetry, Engineering, and Cartography; second place in Science and Code Breaking; and third place in Legacy.
Team members Eliza Singam and Fiona Hao described how they felt when their team was announced as the winners.
“I was shocked because up until that point it hadn’t sunk in that it was internationals,” Eliza said.
“I felt so incredibly proud of our entire team and it made all those tough training sessions and practice papers worth it,” Fiona added.
MLC Director of College Operations Mrs Vanessa Smith said the Decathlon is the ultimate test of not only academic ability, but teamwork and collaboration.
“Each paper is very challenging, requiring students to work together to develop their responses,” Smith said.
“It highlights the importance of holistic education, developing well-rounded young people with a highly nuanced understanding of the world around them. This is the heart of learning and teaching at MLC: we want our students to be creative, curious, and engaged participants in their learning.”
Vivian Gardiner has participated in the competition since Year 5 and saw the international event as a major highlight from the last four years.
“The competition was an opportunity to try something new and push ourselves out of our comfort zones,” Vivian said. “It was also a great atmosphere for team bonding and getting to know people from other schools.”
Acacia Ingram echoed this sentiment, saying it was “an amazing opportunity to get to know other people who have similar interests to [herself] and celebrate the life of an amazing polymath whose contributions have shaped our current society in ways we cannot imagine.”
Team member Grace Lewis said her teachers paid a key role in ensuring the success of the team, which trained all year long for the competition.
“It is such an exhilarating experience, a testament to our work as a team and to all the help from our amazing teachers throughout this experience.”