On Saturday, 31 August two teams of students
from the College participated in the Tournament of Minds held at Newman
College. Tournament of Minds is a competition that measures critical thinking
ability, creativity and teamwork. The College teams entered the competition
under the 'Language and Literacy' strand which required them to complete both a
prepared and a spontaneous challenge. The prepared challenge revolved around
the area of picture books. The teams had to choose two characters from a list
of texts and use these characters to create an original story. They then had to
present their story using presentation skills such as drama, puppetry,
costuming and soundscapes. They had to prepare their picture book and
presentation using only basic materials such as cardboard and without any help
from teachers. The spontaneous challenge was undertaken on the day without any
prior knowledge of what the task would be.
The College teams comprised of students from Years
7, 8 and 9 with seven students on each team. Both teams decided to use
characters from Fox and The Hunger Games. HCC Team Orange
presented their story using a dramatisation while HCC Team Blue performed a
puppet show using a theatre they had made themselves. In the spontaneous
challenge the teams were asked to look at an image and to explain what the
people or animals in the image were doing and whether they were successful. The
image in question was one of donkeys entangled in rope and both teams came up
with ingenious explanations of what was taking place!
The preparation and the tournament day were both
enjoyable and successful and the teams demonstrated wonderful creativity and
some excellent cooperative skills. They also received some wonderful feedback
from the Tournament judges. All the students involved should be very proud of
their accomplishments and we look forward to entering the Tournament of Minds
again in 2014.
Miss Reynolds and Miss Hodgson
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