Huge thanks to our staff, Rachel Johnson and Jimmy Steele, for accompanying the team, and a huge thanks to the parents for getting the students organised with only 4 weeks notice! This allowed little time for fundraising due to the school holidays, so you'll be seeing a few fundraisers coming up this term that you might like to support.
Here's a summary of the event:
On the last Wednesday of the holidays, Izzi, Daniel, Tuhina, Matthew, Louis, Richie and Alex survived 11 hours of travel time Wellington - Darwin; a very tired bunch arrived at their accomodation at 1.45am! A rest day followed...exploring Darwin with the highlights being the man made lagoon (free from jellyfish, sharks and crocs!) and a visit to the WW2 Oil Storage Tunnels beneath the city that were used during the Darwin bombings.The following blog posts by Jimmy Steele sum up the following days ...
Friday: Ceremony, Crocs and Collaboration 
Today was the first taste of the ToM international competition for everybody. We met in the hotel lobby with hoards of other teams from all of the Aussie states, Hong Kong and Thailand, often hearing “OMG they’re from New Zealand” from other excited teams. Students quickly started receiving requests to swap tournament badges - something they would receive frequently throughout the day.
A quick bus ride took us to the Darwin Convention Centre for the Opening Ceremony. A quick welcome was made outside before all participants took part in a ‘Smoking Ceremony’ in which they walked through clouds of smoke to wash away negative energies. Inside the Convention Centre, the 500 students and their facilitators were welcomed again, this time in traditional Aboriginal style and the ceremony got started. The ceremony represented the different seasons present in Darwin and how these are characterised throughout the year. We are currently experiencing the ‘Build Up’ season, characterised by extreme humidity and high temperatures until the rainy season in November. Each of the 7 seasons was explained through audience participation, dance, musical performances by local schools and speeches. It was an interesting, creative and educational opening ceremony.
Morning tea was followed by the first official activity where our students took part in the ‘Thinking Carnival’ - a thinking session with Lee Watanabe-Crockett. This session surrounded problem solving and ideas the teams would need to embody to be successful in their lockdown challenge. They brainstormed ideas, collaborated with other teams and were given lots of great information from Lee. Lee’s ideas linked really well to the Design Thinking Process and Wabisabi learning which the kids could relate to from their work at school.
The first session led to a quick lunch then another bus trip, this time to Crocosaurus Cove! This was an awesome experience with HUGE crocs seen up close and lots of reptiles too. The kids were able to hold baby crocs and an albino carpet python. There was plenty of excitement around and a feeding show which showed the power behind a crocodile bite. Luckily the crocs that some of the kids fed were much smaller!
The kids were keen for bed as they knew they had a big day ahead of them. It would be an early start and a long day but the team is ready for their big challenge.
Saturday: The Main Event
7:30am - bags are packed and they’re ready to go! An early checkout and straight onto the bus to Charles Darwin University. The general consensus from the students was that they were ready for the day and no nerves were tugging yet.
The students were taken to their preparation room at 8:30am. We eagerly anticipated their reaction when they were released and hoped that their challenges were everything they hoped for. It was 12:20pm before we saw them again.
We saw smiles on their faces and they said they felt confident in what had been accomplished. As their facilitators, we had no idea what their challenge had been and they were forbidden to discuss this until after their presentation. So after lunch in the shade we filed back into the presentation hall and wished them all luck. Raroa was the final team to present. As they moved onto stage, we received some confident thumbs-ups and some nervous smiles and we began to be amazed at the costumes they had created during their prep time.
They really made us proud and we could imagine Lynne there with a beaming smile and thunderous applause.
When the presentations were complete we were bussed to Nakara Primary School for dinner, festivities and excitement before the Award Ceremony and Closing of the Tournament. We found out that Raroa was not placed in the top 3 teams.
It’s now 10pm and the bus is about to pick us up for the start of our journey home. Bring on the 1am flight to Melbourne!