On Monday 11 May and Tuesday 12 May, a selection of Stellatus students attended the Da Vinci Decathlon at UWA. This is a competition for Gifted and Talented students that challenges them in 10 different disciplines – engineering, mathematics, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography and legacy. The Decathlon is designed to celebrate the academic gifts of Australian youth by providing a stimulating and challenging competition run in the spirit of an Olympic Decathlon.

Teams generally consist of eight participants and they need to manage their time limits and work together to complete the challenges presented in each discipline.

This year the theme of the Decathlon was machines and mechanics and the competition is fierce. We were competing against very high performing schools, with the Chisholm students spending many mornings before school preparing for this competition. The hard work paid off with our Year 7 team gaining third place in the Science discipline and our Year 9 team gaining third place in the Legacy discipline, this effort was even more impressive as the team was a little undermanned with only five students being available for the competition day.

I would like to thank the Library staff who organised many books to help students research the theme; Ms Ng and Mr Smith who gave their time before school for five weeks every morning to work tirelessly with the students to prepare them.

Congratulations to all students and staff on your amazing efforts.

Mrs Kylie Underwood
Coordinator of Gifted and Talented (Stellatus)