Fifty middle-school students gathered at St. Bernadette School in Springfield March 2 for the National Catholic Academic Junior High Decathlon. Teams from St. Bernadette, St. John the Evangelist School in Clinton, Md., and St. Patrick School in Fredericksburg competed in the daylong event.
The National Catholic Academic Junior High Decathlon is a nationwide competition for middle school students attending Catholic schools and is held every year at the beginning of March.
Preparation for the event began in October when students were selected for teams. Teams met to study the required material, practice solving puzzles, and develop strategies to quickly and accurately answer questions. Every team mastered puzzle solving for the first section of the competition. In the second section, students took sixty-minute religion, English, social studies, science, math or fine arts tests. The final event was the live Super Quiz team competition.
This decathlon was the first in-person event for the Arlington diocese and the Archdiocese of Washington. Coordinated by Bridget Smith, with technical assistance from Jacquie Sawyer, teams filled the cafeteria with enthusiasm and knowledge. Smith said she would love to see more local schools participate next year.
“Being able to offer a multi-disciplinary event like this to our middle schoolers is just one of the many examples of how Catholic education goes above and beyond to serve our students,” Smith said.
Participating students credited the event for not just teaching them about certain subjects, but also learning to work together as a team.
To learn more
Interested schools should contact Kasey Miller at [email protected].
