Congratulations to all Heaton FPS students. One team, Eliza, Hannah, Jessica and Melissa, have earned a spot at the Future Problem Solving National Finals.

All Heaton teams represented themselves well during the Qualifying Problem in September. Eliza, Hanna, Jessica and Melissa are now learning all about personalised medicine as they prepare for the National Finals on Thursday, 11 November.

FPS is a worldwide competition where teams compete against each other. Heaton students compete in FPS’s Global Issues Problem Solving division. Every year students are given four main topics for FPS, which could be about anything that might be a problem in the world in the future.

This year the four topics were youth in competitive sports, wearable technology, human environmental impact, and personalised medicine. The first two topics are practices for the competition, with the third one being the QP (qualifying problem) to go to the National Finals.

At the start of each problem, students research the topics and learn how to do the six FPS steps for each problem. The six steps are reading the future scene, creating challenges, writing the underlying problem, making solutions, establishing criteria and writing out an action plan.

When completing the problem in the competition, students complete the booklet in two hours and fifteen minutes, which is hard work. If you are in the top in New Zealand for the QP, you are invited to go to the National Finals. If you score in the top three at the National Competition, then you are invited to compete at the International Finals.

If you see our Heaton FPS team this week, wish them luck!