On Thursday, 8 May, 32 Secondary students across four teams in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 represented Matthew Flinders Anglican College at the regional da Vinci Decathlon academic competition.
All four Flinders teams (with eight students in each team) achieved numerous place medals for their creativity and critical thinking skills, including first place medals for the Year 8 and Year 10 teams.
Flinders' Year 8, Year 10 and Year 11 teams will now progress to the State competition, to be held at Brisbane Boys College from 21-22 May.
The da Vinci Decathlon 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.
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 legacy.
Flinders Results | da Vinci Decathlon Regional Sunshine Coast Event
Secondary School Team Awards 2025:
- Year 7 Team: Third Place Medals in English and Cartography
- Year 8 Team: First Place in Science; Third Place in Creative Producers, Ideation and Science
- Year 9 Team: Third Place in Science
- Year 10 Team: First Place in Maths, Legacy, English and Science; Second place in Cartography and Ideation; Third Place in Code Breaking and English
- Year 11 Team: Note, the Year 11 team progressed directly to the State competition (21-22 May)
In the 13 weeks leading-up to the regional competition, the students committed to training sessions every Wednesday afternoon after school, guided by expert Flinders staff, Mrs Carol Marais, Head of Learning Development and Enrichment, and Mr Patrick Morrow, Head of Learning Futures; with support from Mr Bill Hooper, Head of Curriculum.
Mrs Marais and Mr Morrow also invited other Flinders staff to contribute their specialist skills to the training and team-building sessions; staff included Mrs Sue Holmes, Mr David Lanskey, Mrs Jo Slocombe and Mr Andy Fraser.
Flinders' students Elizabeth Wegener in Year 12 and Hanina Ward in Year 10 led as the da Vinci Captains; both contributed presentations and provided helpful advice during the training sessions to all the students involved.
Hanina said, “The da Vinci Decathlon was an exciting day filled with teamwork and difficult questions! It was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with like-minded students, while also testing our creativity and problem-solving skills and having fun in our teams.”
