Christ’s College has hosted New Zealand’s first da Vinci Decathlon, an academic challenge for Years 9–11 students.

Requiring a collaborative approach that draws together individual skills, the da Vinci Decathlon challenges agile minds and quick thinkers.

Launched in Sydney, it now attracts thousands of students in Australia and the United Kingdom and continues to grow in popularity, expanding to New Zealalnd this year.

Teams of eight from across Christchurch have competed at a formidable pace, taking on challenges in mathematics, cartography, English, science, code breaking, art and poetry, ideation, engineering, creative producers, and legacy. In all, they have tackled 10 disciplines in one day of frantic and rewarding collaboration, creativity, and competition.

Our  Year 9 da Vinci Decathlon team won taking out first place! The team was: Ayshanie Ayingaran 9SOSC, Ida Clausen 9NGBB, Ava Heath Williamson 9NNRS, Paige Leyton 9SMNO. Hemetaj Manterna 9WRIC, Miles McGrath 9NHDC, Aditi Smibsl Kamiyath 9NGBB and Miranda Yuan 9WRIC.

Competing across 10 academic disciplines they excelled in all but their team work, time management and delivery set them apart. Congratulations!

The Year 10 team of Andi Dai 10SGCT, Ben Gorman 10SCGT, Joe Greenstreet 10SWRK, Rachel McGowan 10SCGT,Soomin Song 10WWTA. George Wilkins 10NSYA, Minjun Cho 10WJCN and Jess Williams 10SWRK placed First in a very tight competition.

The Year 11 team of Sam Allen 11WZHY, Thomas Brocherie 11NDVA, Chloe Chan 11WZHY, Katie Horton 11WSNS, Margarita Konstantinova 11SBSJ, Aryan Raut 11SGLS, Katherine Watts 11NMSL and Andrew Wu 11SBSJ were second by a couple of points to Christs College after winning in English, Science, Mathematics and Ideation.

We are very fortunate and proud to have these amazing students at our school!!!