This is the second year that Newington College Lindfield have participated in the da Vinci Decathlon held at Knox Grammar School. The Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. Our boys competed in teams of eight across 10 disciplines: engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography and general knowledge.

The Decathlon places particular emphasis on higher order thinking skills, problem solving and creativity. As the students work in teams, collaboration certainly becomes the focus of the day.

This year we entered a Year 5 and a Year 6 team. Prior to the Decathlon the boys were required to meet weekly in order to gain experience in working with each other and solving various tasks and challenges. We are already looking forward to next year!

Freddie Year 6: ‘Expect the unexpected.’

Stylianos Year 6: ‘I really loved going up and receiving an award for all of our hard work.’

Nirav Year 6: ‘Collaboration is the most important thing that I learnt.’

Noah Year 5: ‘I liked the general knowledge questions because they challenged me but my favourite was code breaking and cartography. I liked drawing the contour lines on the map.’

Billy Year 5: ‘I liked that if I didn’t know the answer I could ask a friend to help.’

Angus Year 5: ‘The day was a great experience, it was fun and challenging. I worked on the Art and poetry, creative producers and general knowledge. The poetry was my favourite.’

Lachlan Year 5: ‘The theme of the day was ‘The Unexpected’, I really enjoyed doing the engineering task, we had to design a way out of a 40 story building if there was a fire. I loved catching the train there and visiting a different school.’

Rupert Year 5: ‘I had an awesome experience at the Decathlon, the activities really challenged me but in a fun way. I liked hanging out with my friends and there was a challenge for the most unexpected table cloth design!’

Aleca Bradshaw and Philip Trethewey