Being challenged beyond the curriculum
Walking in the footsteps of the Ancient Greek polymath, students at Trinity have an opportunity to join the Archimedes Club where they can extend their learning beyond the classroom and participate in academic competitions, excursions and other events that encourage their curiosity.
Trinity students have competed in events like the da Vinci Decathlon and the Ethics Olympiad for many years, but before the Archimedes Club became an official Co-curricular option in late 2023, they needed to balance these opportunities alongside all their other commitments.
“I find a lot of students in Archimedes Club are the type of students who try everything,” Ms Stephanie Boyce – supervisor and facilitator of the Co-curricular – says, a fact that made it tricky to shoehorn extra time into their busy schedules to practice for whichever competition was on the horizon. “Now, it’s really nice to have that dedicated time.”
One limitation of the Co-curricular is that for each competition, often team sizes are limited to a certain number of students. While, sometimes, multiple teams from the one school can be entered, it can still mean that some students need to be patient for another opportunity.
“I have more interest than I do spots available for the competitions,” Ms Boyce says.
While that aspect of the club is in the hands of the external competitions, Ms Boyce says it has driven her to go deeper into other opportunities, finding new competitions and projects for the students to get involved in when another competition might already be full.
One such initiative is the International Academic Research Competition (IARCO). The competition requires students (in high school or university) to submit a university-standard research project.
Students can pick any topic they like across any discipline, making it a true passion project for each student as they showcase their research, analytical thinking, and intellectual independence.
Not only is Ms Boyce on the look out for new opportunities, she says the students often come to her with ideas.
“It’s very student-led. Students have brought so many ideas to the Co-curricular,” she says. Although many of these ideas need to be approved by faculty or executive committee, more often than not, the ideas are given the green light.
“Some things have been good, some things haven’t worked because of logistics, but there’s variety. Every year could potentially be completely different. The same students don’t have to participate in the same competition each year, and the same competitions might not be on the table.”
This year’s Tournament of the Minds at UNSW saw a Trinity Year 7 STEM team enter the fray. Competing against many teams that were Year 9 and above – and many who were competing for their third or fourth time together, while Trinity’s team was there for the first time – Ms Boyce says they felt out of their depth but they worked together and bolstered each other to make it through to the State level, exceeding their own expectations and leaving with a huge sense of achievement.
“Some of these students may not be sporty. They may not be into debating. They may not shine in those common fields that get commended. It’s really nice for them to have an outlet for them to see that there are different ways to represent the School and be in a team, to demonstrate that teamwork.”
Keep an eye out for news from the Archimedes Club as they tackle competitions and attend events across the year like the da Vinci Decathlon, the Ethics Olympiad, Ethical Explorations Day, the Free Thinker’s Forum, the Tournament of Minds, and the International Academic Research Competition.
