Congratulations to those students who have excelled in recent national and Australasian science competitions. And a huge well done to Year 11 student Thora Moffat, who received a Bronze Award in the New Zealand Chemistry Olympiad!

Over the last term, Year 9 to 11 students self-selected to participate in science competitions. These included the Kiwi Science Competition and the Australasia-wide Big Science Competition. Students competed against others in their age bracket and our Nayland College students produced outstanding results across both competitions. 

Ivan Shabashev was the Year 9 New Zealand champion in the Kiwi Science Competition, with the top score and fastest time. He also received Distinction (99.5th percentile). This is an outstanding result, and he should be very proud of this achievement. 

The results in the Big Science Competition were just as impressive with Mattie Lang, Ivan Shabashev, Jamie Harding, and Matthew Whitmee receiving a High Distinction (top 5%) and Femke Kleinloog, Keshia Linyard, and Tarn Bazley receiving Distinction (next 10%). 

It was Ivan's first time entering these particular competitions and he was "quite surprised" to get the highest score nationally in the Kiwi Science one. 

However, it wasn't Ivan's first time competing at a higher level. He and some of his friends competed in the Aquabots competition, coming second nationally and he was recently named the Years 9-10 winner in the Technology category at the regional Cawthron Scitec Expo.

He finds science "an interesting thing to do," saying "I like investigating things and thinking logically."

Ivan spends his spare time doing programming, math, science and reading. He likes solving interesting puzzles and making his own programming projects. He also enjoys doing "some computer security programming, making websites and webgames" and "implementing cyphers in interesting settings," he said.

In the senior school, Thora Moffat (pictured on the left with her fellow debaters earlier this year), achieved a Bronze Award in the New Zealand Chemistry Olympiad. She has been invited to participate in the second round of the Olympiad where if she does well, she could represent New Zealand as part of a 4-person team to compete in the worldwide chemistry event, following in the footsteps of Isla Swanney from this year.

Chemistry is Thora's favourite subject at the moment. "I just really like it," she said. "I like how it's practical stuff as well as learning stuff."

Over the summer Thora will be studying hard, learning the extra material and preparing for the second round of testing early next year. Good luck Thora!

Well done to all those who participated in the recent competitions and a big congratulations to each of our high achievers in science!