The World Scholar’s Cup is a unique competition bringing together learners from all over the world and from all different types of schools. Each regional round held in different countries involves four main events centred around a theme. This year’s theme was “An Entangled World”, which is discussed in the context of 6 subject areas (Science, Art and Music, Literature, Social Studies, History and Special Area). This year’s materials covered a range of topics including black markets, diplomacy, personal relationships, and the science of memory. Although 12 scholars participated quite actively in the CCA leading up to the event, only 6 learners were able to attend this year’s Singapore Round, held in Dulwich College on March 17 and 18, competing with over 300 teams from Singapore and other countries.

The two teams faced stiff competition from veteran teams from schools such as Nanyang Girls’ High School, Tanglin Trust, St. Joseph’s International, Dulwich College, GEMS World Academy and others. They participated in 4 events: Team Debate, Collaborative Writing, Scholar’s Bowl (quiz bowl) and Scholar’s Challenge. In total the two teams won 9 medals. The junior team (Laura Dohmen, Nanda Nair and Xavier Noel) each won individual silver medals for writing, and the team also won a team medal in Collaborative writing. The senior team, composed of Chester Chatfield, Sarthak Kumar, and Seth Yew, performed admirably. Chester Chatfield won a Da Vinci gold medal award, given to those who performed well in all categories, while Sarthak Kumar won a Da Vinci silver medal award. Seth Yew won silver medals for writing as well as for being one of the Champion scholars. Both teams qualified for the Global Rounds, which this year will be held in Barcelona, Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne. Nanda and Laura even performed a mash up during the Scholar’s show! Most importantly, learners gained valuable skills working in their teams and enjoyed their experience immensely. As one learner put it “I enjoyed learning and discussing topics outside our curriculum. It opened my mind to other topics I never would have looked into, like learning about the science of memory.”

Melanie Su (Y12)

On Tuesday morning, the entire Year 7 experienced Science in a different way. A live presentation on Space Travel followed by a movie on the Sun, Moon and Earth in the OMNI theatre helped extend and revise their knowledge on Space Physics. Visiting the exhibits afterwards gave them new knowledge for the current Science project on Endangered Animals and also allowed them to follow lines of enquiry into other areas of Science in which they had a particular interest.

Comments from learners included:

“My favourite part was the Omni Theatre. I loved feeling like I was in outer space and space was surrounding me” Charlie Marsh

“I enjoyed going to the omni theatre and looking at the different exhibits.” Scarlett Nicholl

Anne Cain, Learning Area Leader: Science

Dedicated to the earth and raising global environmental issues, Earth Week is an important event every year. This year, the Primary led CCA Environmental Rangers and the Secondary CCA WFUNA teams worked together to design themes for each day of the week.

Monday our question was -" Can you teach and learn without using electricity"? Learners were encouraged to research using text books only, aircon systems were switched off as well as the lights in the pods and the classrooms, even during lessons!

Tuesday was Plastic Free Day. The whole school worked on trying to use as little plastic as possible. For this reason, additional price charges were applied on all plastic bottles or cups, in the canteen. Many learners brought reusable water bottles from home as an alternative to “one-use” plastic bottles.

No Waste Day on Wednesday encouraged learners and staff to become more aware of their production of waste. A competition for Primary and Secondary learners was held in the canteen to create awareness posters or statues of an endangered animal out of reused materials. The pieces created were absolutely stunning and reduced our waste production for that day.

On average a person uses 77000 sheets of A4 paper every year. The idea of Paper Day on Thursday was to raise awareness as to how much paper our school uses every day together with understanding the detrimental effects of cutting down trees.

Finally, Water Day on Friday was dedicated to learning about our dependence on clean, fresh water and all the community were encouraged to wear blue. It has been absolutely amazing to see everyone participate in the awareness program and we thank the Nexus community for their involvement. We are already thinking about themes for next year’s Earth Week to bring about positive change.

Carlota Rego Pinker, Y10