Academic

Students play in competitions against each other, receiving mentoring and coaching from staff at each of the campuses. The activity is open to interested students at all year levels. Students can also play online against other people from around the world using GameKnot.

Students develop their skills and may be selected for the SIS team which competes against the other schools in our region at the Annual Chess Competition day in early September.

Debating is a collaborative experience that widens student’s knowledge, understanding of real world issues and their skillset, allowing for literacy and numeracy development. Students at the Berwick Campus compete in three levels of debating: House, SIS (interschool) and DAV (state level).

The debating program at the College runs throughout the year with students having many opportunities to transfer their skills across the curriculum. Students are required to commit to weekly or fortnightly meetings to support their team and practise skills.

Tournament of Minds is a competition for students requiring them to use their inferential skills, innovation, problem solving, critical thinking and creativity within a given category. The challenges are set in the following disciplines: Arts, Language, Literature, Social Sciences and STEM.

Teams of seven students each (from Years 7 to 10) compete during Term 3. Notifications for interested students and meeting times will be placed within the respective campus Daily Bulletins.

The Beaumont Oratory is a public speaking competition held annually for students at all year levels. The College’s English teachers select finalists to participate by nominating the best speakers from their classes, based on the persuasive speeches presented as part of the English curriculum.

The standard of public speaking from the finalists has been exceptional over the years and has inspired many students to further develop their public speaking skills by participating in the Debaters Association of Victoria Schools Competition.

The da Vinci Decathlon is a nationwide academic competition for students between Years 5 and 11, designed to challenge their minds as they compete across 10 disciplines; engineering, mathematics, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, creative production, ideology, cartography and general knowledge.

We annually train two teams of Year 7 students to enter. Students find the experience intellectually stimulating, fun and rewarding. The competition emphasises critical thinking, working collaboratively as a team, and lateral approaches to solving problems.

The Australian Geography Competition is a contest for Australian secondary school students, assessing their geographical knowledge and skills. The Competition is open to students studying geography or any humanities unit that involves geography in all years of secondary school.

The top male and female students in Year 11 in Australia are invited to participate in the annual Geography’s Big Week Out, a six day event which focuses on fieldwork, spatial technologies and analytical skills.