Smith’s Hill High School has shed its bridesmaid tag by finally winning the International Tournament of the Minds (ToM) competition in Darwin over the weekend.
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In securing first place in the Secondary Language Literature section, the Wollongong school broke through for its first tournament win since 2005.
The win also comes after Smith’s Hill HS received honours [second place] on five occasions in the last 10 years.
Drama teacher and ToM facilitator Bryan Cutler said as the tournament was open to all Australian schools, winning the problem solving program was a tremendous result.
“We are incredibly happy. We are very very proud of the students but also relieved that we’ve got back to the top again,” Mr Cutler said.
“We’ve been runners-up so many times. It’s great to finally get over the line.
“We have been developing a culture at our school around the Tournament of Minds program because it caters well for the gifted and talented students.
“We’ve also used previous students to help facilitate and up-skill our teams, so it is like a snowball effect.”
Smith’s Hill HS’ winning team of Ruvindri Ediriweera, Rebecca Winn, Annika Oakley, Keegan Hall, Sienna Johnson, Amy Wearing and Jaquiline Jogen were “ecstatic”.
Year 9 student Annika, who was also part of last year’s team which claimed an honours’ placing, was especially happy to go one better in 2018 and win the whole thing.
She said the team had to solve a problem and perform the solution using creative movements and soundscapes.
“The introduction for the challenge was there was an abandoned library and inside were four books, classics which had come to life,” Annika said.
“We chose The Fabulous Five, To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein and The Cat in the Hat.
“The books didn’t know why they had come to life and a saviour came to the library and had to give each of the books a quest to prove that they were good enough to be able to be freed from the library.
“It was our job to relay each of the books’ quests.
“We did that using creative movements and soundscapes. It was very exciting.”
Mr Cutler praised the students, adding they displayed great problem solving, creativity and critical thinking skills.
“They also had to work together well and were required to think outside the square to solve and perform their problem.”
Tournament of Minds is a problem solving programme for teams of students from both primary and secondary years.
Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
