Awards and Competitions

Current awards and competitions include:

Most Outstanding Year 11 Student Award

For information, see Most Outstanding Year 11.

The Whitlam Institute’s annual “What Matters?” competition

Students from year 5 to year 12 submit a 400-600 word opinion piece on what matters in society.

On the 4 August the Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney announced Madeleine Boxall from St Catherine's School in Waverley as the overall winner of the 2011 What Matters? Competition. Madeleine, who is in Year 11, posed the question 'Why has Australia left marriage equality standing at the altar?'  The ceremony was attended by Mrs Margaret Whitlam AO and Yalda Hakim, co-presenter of SBS's Dateline program.

For more information on the 2011 competition, see 'What Matters?'.

UniSteers

School teams annual steer-raising competition is run by the UWS School of Natural Sciences.

Eighteen high schools from across Greater Western Sydney are competing in the 2011 challenge.  Each school has received a Poll Hereford steer that students care and feed for over approximately 100 days.  The steers are then presented for competition at the Hawkesbury showground and the Central Coast Prime Beef Show.  They are then sold on the beef market.

Participating students learn about animal care, agricultural industries and team work.

For more information see  Local schools steer challenge brings agriculture to the table.

Australian Brain Bee Challenge

An exciting finale to the 2011 NSW Brain Bee Challenge saw the top three students separated by only one point each.  The overall winner was Alexander Wojno of Duval High School in Armidale, just ahead of Kane Hausfield of Penrith High School and Shena Cooke of Lindisfarne Anglican School, Terranora.  Alexander will go on to compete in the national finals at the Gold Coast in January.

Brain Bee aims to motivate young people to learn about the brain and was created to inspire students to pursue careers in neuroscience research.

Nearly 130 year 10 students from 32 schools visited the UWS School of Medicine on 4 August to take part in the final rounds of the NSW competition.  Thirteen schools contested the team final, which was won by Baulkham Hills High (Anand Madan, Joshua Scott-King, Paurush Tyagi and Sai Prakesh Vaheisvaran).  Second was Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Sydney, followed by Hunters Hill High.

Students also enjoyed interactive neurophysiology workshops, presentations by scientists and UWS advanced science students, and tours of the Medicine research laboratories.

2011 winner Alexander Wojno is congratulated by 2010 winner Wasiul Hoque

 The winning team from Baulkham Hills High School

Additional information on the competition can be found on the Australian Brain Bee Challenge website. 

Women of the West

The Women of the West Award is an opportunity for members of the private, public and community sectors in Greater Western Sydney to join UWS in formally recognising the contribution women have made to the development of our region. Each year women who have made a positive difference to the lives of others in the Greater West are nominated by community members for the Woman of the West Award and the Young Woman of the West award. Nominations are sought in Spring each year and the winners are announced at the University’s International Women’s Day event the following March. Nominations of women working in the school sector are encouraged.