Last weekend, Students from St. Andrews International School travelled up to Bangkok to take part in the prestigious “Tournament of the Minds” competition. A group of 7 primary students from years 5 and 6 and two teams of secondary students from years 7-9 competed against 27 other teams of students from other top international schools in the country. The primary team from St. Andrews worked on the Language and Literature challenge and the two secondary teams worked on a Maths and Engineering challenge.
The Tournament of the Minds competition involves teams working collaboratively on a six week problem solving exercise. The students then have to develop a creative and original way to present this to the judges on the day of the tournament.
St Andrews secondary students are rewarded with second place in the overall competition.
On the day of the competition students were also faced with a spontaneous challenge. This challenge requires rapid interchange of ideas, the ability to think creatively and well developed group cooperation skills.
“The spontaneous challenge was really fun because there was no right or wrong answer – we had to throw creative ideas out there and work together as a team to create a good answer about why three donkeys were tied together and what they were plotting,” said Sebi, Jake and Kaia from Year 5.
At the end of an exciting day of presentations and challenges St. Andrews students performed superbly with one of our secondary teams gaining second prize overall.
St. Andrews students celebrate their success.
“It was a fantastic opportunity to meet students from other schools and see their machines in action,” said Andy from Year 8.
Taking part in the Tournament of the Minds competition is part of St. Andrews school’s “Exceptional Learners Program” which aims to identify and nurture our most highly gifted students, giving them a chance to compete and succeed against similar students from other schools.
“We are very proud of all the students who competed and pushed themselves to do their very best in such a challenging environment,” said Mrs. Deborah Bradshaw, Primary Exceptional learners’ coordinator.
