St Peter’s Girls’ is the chapter school in South Australia for the State da Vinci Decathlon Competition, an academic competition that was established in 2002. It 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” (Knox Grammar, 2024). Our school is proud to host this event, with competitions for a range of year levels including Year 5-6, Year 7, and Year 9s.
We hosted 25 teams a day, competing to become the State Champion for 2026. Each team is composed of eight team members, so our School was a hive of activity with 200 students a day on site!
The State Competition theme this year was ‘Machines’, with students competing across 10 disciplines: Engineering, Mathematics, Code Breaking, Art and Poetry, Science, English, Ideation, Creative Producers, Cartography, and Legacy. (Knox Grammar, 2024). Each team attempted the tasks in the categories with enthusiasm, taking up the challenge set for them by leading teachers and University academics nationally. They were required to collaborate, problem solve, and apply their critical thinking skills to a range of scenarios based on the theme of ‘Machines’.
Throughout the week, our teams from Saints Girls’ competed with determination and represented our School with pride. Their success reflects months of preparation and training, supported by the coaching expertise of Becca Burton-Howard and Cindy Pitkin. Our girls also engaged with a range of other teaching staff specialising in many of the decathlon disciplines, supporting them to extend their thinking, challenge their creativity, and test the critical application of their learning in the classroom to da Vinci style questions.
Our teams placed in multiple disciplines on each day of competition:
Year 5/6
1st Place – Art and Poetry
1st Place – Ideation
3rd Place – Science
Year 7
1st Place – Ideation
3rd Place – Creative Producers
Year 9
1st Place – Ideation
3rd Place – English
Congratulations to the Years 5/6 team, who placed 3rd overall and the Year 9 team who were crowned State Champions!
