Challenging students through the Enrichment Programme

The Enrichment Programme provides our most academically able students with rich, challenging, learning opportunities beyond the mainstream curriculum.

The programme is designed to offer depth and breadth of opportunity in support of a student’s intellectual, social, and emotional growth.

The programme is characterised by unique and exciting collaborations between our sub-schools and cross-campus collaboration with Presbyterian Ladies’ College. Opportunities include clubs, broadening initiatives, competitions, and tailored outreach programmes with our partners in industry and academia. These programmes

support boys of high ability to realise their potential and harness their many talents towards making a positive contribution to the global community.

We take a look at some of the activities that boys across Junior, Middle and Senior School have undertaken this term.

Junior School Maths Enrichment

In line with one of the five principles underpinning the College’s Enrichment Programme for our most academically able students, ‘daily challenge and talent development’, three exceptional Year 5 Junior School mathematicians had the fortune of working with OSC, Lewis Orr. Lewis is currently studying pure Mathematics and the Classics at UWA and kindly offered his time to introduce the boys to a number of advanced maths concepts.

Sam Sterrett Head of Enrichment

From the advanced maths sessions with OSC Lewis Orr, I learned algebra, which is the study of variables and the rules for manipulating these variables in formulae. It includes numbers, constants, variables, expressions, equations, and linear equations. I also learned that whatever you do on one side of the equals sign, you must do on the others side as the equation has to be balanced.

I really enjoyed working with Lewis because he showed us lots of great websites and how to

play with algebraic sums. It was challenging too because Lewis made us think about why the answers are the way they are. He helped me to learn more about algebra and the missing numbers. Lewis made it fun by giving examples that made me imagine numbers with jetpacks and cool shoes. It helped me remember them and visualise them.

Dylan Vytialingam Year 5

Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad

The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO) is a contest about language and problem solving for high school students. Teams of four work together to answer and decode challenging questions about languages from all over the world. An example of a problem we’ve been faced with is getting limited hints and translations and having to decode a series of messages in Mambiloid, a language spoken by tribes in eastern Nigeria.

I enjoy the stimulating mental challenges of working through the questions as well as working together with a great group of boys.

Tom Jackson Year 12

Talented Young Writers’ Programme

The Talented Young Writers’ Programme brings authors living in Australia to The Literature Centre, located in the Old Prison Hospital in Fremantle. The programme allows students to learn about the story writing process and explore what it is like to be an author. In this term’s workshop, the author Barry Jonsberg taught us all about the editing process and how authors don’t come up with stories, but rather discover them. Barry made each part of the process simple to comprehend and we had the opportunity to ask many questions about writing.

During the workshop, we also worked on finding a story, writing, rewriting and then editing it. We took part in interactive group activities where students from different schools paired up and collaborated by sharing their own short creative stories, offering feedback and advice. It was an enriching experience made fun and engaging by Barry’s sense of humour. We look forward to next term.

Heath Arbuckle and Alexander Donald Year 10

Cluedunnit

The WA Law Society’s Cluedunnit is an enrichment opportunity unlike any other. It provides the participants with valuable knowledge and an insight into what a legal career might entail. In Cluedunnit the teams must sentence 2-3 of the main suspects (including the prime suspect) to an appropriate penalty. To do this they will have to look through the brief of evidence and then pose 6 questions to the Law Society, seeking extra evidence to prove their suspicions beyond reasonable doubt.

After that comes the most exciting part of Cluedunnit, which is the creative presentation. Teams create a media presentation of their legal arguments in a fun and original way. This could be a comic book, video or even a combination of the two.

The thing that I enjoyed the most about this competition was the filming and editing of our creative presentation. It was very funny to go through all the retakes and then come up with our final edit.

Montgomery King Year 6

The Da Vinci Decathlon

The Da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition held annually for students in years five to eleven, at UWA. There are eight students in a team per year from a school attending the competition. The Decathlon is named after Leonardo Da Vinci who was one of the greatest luminaries in all of the ten Decathlon subjects: Mathematics, English, Science, Art & Poetry, Engineering, Cartography, Code-Breaking, Legacy, Ideation and Creative Producers. Legacy tests general knowledge on famous people and their significant inventions. Ideation is about coming up with creative solutions to real-world problems. Creative Producers is about creating a skit from a given prompt. Teams prepare by testing themselves on old papers to prepare for the upcoming ones. My takeaway from the Da Vinci Decathlon is that it helps students develop collaborative and problem-solving skills as well as resilience.

Ahren Mahesh Year 6

The Young Entrepreneurs Showcase

Last year, Scotch College gave me the opportunity to take part in the Young Entrepreneurs Showcase (YES) event at West Tech Fest, where I presented and pitched my new technology start-up, Droneify, to potential investors and clients. The event was packed with insightful experiences, from having the opportunity to pitch my business to influential technology entrepreneurs to meeting the creator of ‘Angry Birds’! This STEM enrichment activity truly gave me invaluable insights into everything that goes into preparing for a business tradeshow, from creating business pamphlets, to developing an exciting promotional video. The YES event also gave me the opportunity to speak with students from across Perth that share my passion for business, technology, and entrepreneurship. It was great to hear about the different experiences, challenges, and successes of young entrepreneurs in Perth. Overall, this STEM enrichment experience augmented my understanding of how tradeshows operate, fine-tuned my pitching techniques to investors and revealed the secrets of Angry Birds’ mega-success!

Ethan Buzza Year 11