During Term 3, a group of Ivanhoe Girls’ students had the privilege of taking part in the Tournament of Minds challenge (TOM) at La Trobe University. TOM is a team challenge in which members collaborate to find and present a solution from the given challenge to the judges on the day. 

All four of our teams, which consisted of seven people each, completed the Arts challenge. The topic was the "Wizard of Aus", in which we had to recreate The Wizard of Oz as if it were set in Australia. We were all given six weeks to write up and practise scripts, create costumes and backdrops and compose two original songs. No outside assistance was allowed. It was great to see the many different interpretations of the challenge on the day, including talking Vegemite, angry Bondi Beach lifeguards, Bunnings Sausage men and many other characters. 

On the day of the presentation, we also had another challenge called the Spontaneous challenge. In this we had to discuss and present our solution in five minutes. The Spontaneous Challenge was kept a secret from us until we had to present, which made it even harder.

Everyone enjoyed the experience, and are likely to sign up again. Team SMEAMS Q received honours for the Melbourne Northern Region - Madeleine, Monika, Annabelle, and Quincy from Year 7, and Skana, Sydney, and Elena from Year 8. We all loved preparing and practising our plays, and everyone presented well on the day. A massive thank you to Ms Lilly and Ms Campbell who did an amazing job organising everything, and played a big role in making sure everything went smoothly and gave us feedback along the way. We couldn’t have done it without their help.

Anika (Year 8) and Eva (Year 7)