Gold Medallists in 2019 da Vinci Decathlon National Finals
Wednesday 31 July, 2019
Principal Dr Kate Hadwen has congratulated both our Year 7 and Year 9 da Vinci Decathlon teams, who were each awarded 2019 National Champions in their age group categories during a challenging finals competition at Knox Grammar held over three days just before the last school holidays.
“Achieving such excellent results at a national level is a real testament to the teamwork, academic rigour, courage and independent thinking skills of our Pymble students,” Dr Hadwen says.
Pymble’s Year 7 team comprised Ellie Beck, Alicia Ge, Clara He, Lauren Kim, Jessie Li, Emma Parsons, Julie Sheng and Grace Ho. Our Year 9 team was Josephine Armstrong, Faye Chang, Kristen Cook, Sophia Croudace, Chloe Hoang, Serena Li, Annabel Maple-Brown and Catherine Song. They joined 30 other teams from all over Australia.
The da Vinci Decathlon is a highly regarded academic competition requiring teamwork, academic excellence, creativity and hard work. Students compete 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 girls worked really hard in preparation, and over the four days of the competition, and I’m so proud of them all,” says Mrs Sarah Drane, Pymble’s High Potential Learning Co-ordinator.
This year’s NSW State Final held in May involved teams from over 80 schools in each year group category and all Pymble teams performed exceptionally well, with both Year 7 and Year 9 teams finishing in 1st place, our Year 10 team coming 2nd, our Year 8 team coming 3rd, and our Year 11 team in 6th place.
“This year 16,000 students across Australia took part in the Decathlon, so for our school to win in two year-group categories is an amazing achievement,” says Mrs Drane.
The papers are pitched at a very high level and present a real challenge for the country’s most gifted and talented learners, Mrs Drane adds.
“I am just so thrilled for all of our Pymble teams, who were a credit to the school – hard working, modest and fully appreciative of this wonderful opportunity,” Mrs Drane says.