Seven students represented our College on Sunday 9 September at the State Final of the Tournament of Minds competition. Kaitlyn Crymble (Year 10 Gold), Michael Douthwaite (Year 7 Silver), Ella Preston (Year 8 Bronze), Emma Di Paolo (Year 9 White), Jelinna Santiago (Year 10 Red), Molly Bollaart (Year 10 Jade) and Madeline Onley (Year 7 Bronze) received a wildcard entry to the final following their high-scoring performance in the Arts Challenge at the regional TOM event, held at MLMC two weeks earlier.
The MLMC team arrived at La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus to compete with some of the best teams in Victoria and were given three hours to create a 10-minute performance which demonstrated their solution to a problem they had never seen before. They had to argue in favour of funding the arts when a rival group wanted to relocate the funds to the war effort during World War II. When then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding to support the war effort, he replied: “Then what are we fighting for?” The students needed to explore the consequences of removing the arts funding and express this in a dramatised performance, including either a song or dance, which expressed their reasons. Students also had just four minutes to solve a spontaneous problem with only one minute available to present to a panel of judges. All the students worked hard and had a fantastic time showing off their problem solving skills and their ability to work as a team. They should be very proud of their achievements on the day.
