Senior : Curriculum : da Vinci

Contact - da Vinci Program

Results from the June 2008 da Vinci decathlon held at Knox Grammar School:

Year 5     Year 6     Year 7     Year 8     Year 9     Year 10

Note regarding Year 7 results:
Year 7 - Overall
1st  - Sydney Girls High School
2nd – St Ignatius College Riverview
3rd – St George Girls High School
St George Girls was awarded 3rd place on a count back.

The da Vinci decathlon has been running for several years at Knox Grammar School. Our “decathlon with a difference” is an academic Inter-School gala day run in the spirit of an Olympic Decathlon, with events of an academic nature. Schools enter teams of eight students. Students will participate in activities in the following disciplines:

· Mathematics – emphasis on problem solving, number patterns and logic puzzles

· English – spelling, word origins, definitions, scrabble, “Wheel of Fortune” style tasks

· Science – students will be provided with higher level scientific concepts and be tested on their ability to apply them

· Code Breaking – in the spirit of World War II, students will aim to decipher several codes

· Engineering Challenge – a building task designed to test creativity and ingenuity

· Forensic Sleuths – dealing with maps, photographs and other evidence

· Creative Producers – a sub-group from the team will have ten minutes to develop and present a 30-second commercial to promote a particular product

· Art and Poetry – the team will develop a poem plus a complementary work of art on a given theme

· Games of Strategy – Mastermind, Chess and Connect 4

· General Knowledge – current affairs, entertainment, sport and trivia.

The tasks will be exciting and challenging with a particular emphasis placed on higher order thinking skills. Students will be highly stimulated by the day’s events. Schools should aim to select students who are able to complement each other in the various disciplines. Only one response per group will be submitted. 

The da Vinci Program provides curriculum activities designed to meet the special educational needs of gifted and talented students.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the world's greatest thinkers and scholars. His talents spanned an enormous range of disciplines - artist, architect, poet, scholar, anatomist, optician, hydrodynamic, mechanical and military engineer, mathematician and astronomer. He demonstrated a superior ability to perceive the interconnected nature of knowledge and embraced learning with a lifelong passion and determination to uncover what was hitherto unknown by his society. His bold and imaginative intellectual legacy is a permanent challenge for the leaders and thinkers of the 21st century.

Findings from a wealth of current educational research and the Commonwealth Government White Paper into the education of gifted children highlights the strong imperative of offering a curriculum which meets the needs of different groups of students, including gifted children. The consequences of not providing such an approach to learning are clear for many students, including disengagement from School, disaffection with learning and failure to achieve potential.

The research recognises the specific educational strategies most appropriate to meet the needs of these academically most-able students. A wide range of these strategies is employed in the da Vinci Program, in the context of the Knox philosophy of educating the whole student. The da Vinci Program is the School's response to the education of our academically most able students, reflecting both the traditional ethos of education within the School, as well as teaching and learning which reflects current research in relation to the educational and social needs of gifted students.

KNOX GRAMMAR SCHOOL Pacific Highway PO Box 5008 Wahroonga NSW Australia 2076 T: +61 2 9487 0122 F: +61 2 9487 0186 E: contact@knox.nsw.edu.au ABN: 43 709 615 471 CRICOS Provider Code: 00399E

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