Students and faculty from the Queensland Academy for Health Sciences have opened 2023 with a string of national and international wins.
QAHS is based within GCHKP on the south side of Smith Street, where the Precinct anchor institution produces a steady pipeline of emerging STEM innovators.
The selective-entry secondary school delivers the globally recognised IB Diploma Programme, a tertiary preparation curriculum known for its academic rigour.
Already this year, QAHS graduates have been selected to represent Australian at the world’s largest high school science competition and senior QAHS leadership spoke at a global education forum.
QAHS students also dominated CSIRO’s CREST research awards, a long-running student science competition where academy students have an outstanding track record.
Principal Vanessa Rebgetz says she and her staff take educating their students “personally”.
“It’s personal to the degree that these students will be the leaders of tomorrow in many fields and their decisions and their humanity will create the future society each of us will live in,” she says.
STUDENT SUCCESS
At the 2023 CREST awards, QAHS students brought home a record 10 gold, 50 silver and two bronze awards.
The result was in no way an anomaly—in the past 14 years, more than one third of the national Gold awards (which require at least 100 hours dedicated to a unique science project) have been given to QAHS students.
“This was a phenomenal achievement,” says Ms Rebgetz, “and recognition of what’s possible when students are supported to exceed their own expectations of themselves.”
A pair of students from QAHS’s 2022 class are also celebrating their selection to the Australian team competing at next month’s International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Texas, the world’s largest science competition for high school students.
Stanley Wey and Thien Tran will present their research at ISEF, which brings together students from 80 countries, after their success at the Australian Science and Engineering Fair (AUSSEF).
Stanley’s work compares spectra absorbency between UV-filters, 2-Hydroxy-4- methoxybenzophenone and novel Hydroxyapatite, as well as their impacts on marine ecosystems, while Thien has investigated the adsorption of anionic azo dyes by clay-alginate composite.
The pair are from QAHS’s outstanding class of 2022, which achieved average IB Diploma scores well above the global standard, and 19.3% of students scored at ATAR of 99+ and 69.3% achieved a 90+ ATAR.
QAHS STAFF IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Academy leadership were themselves honoured with a presentation berth at the International Baccalaureate Global Conference 2023 in Adelaide last month. More than 1,100 delegates attended from 342 schools across 34 countries.
Principal Vanessa Rebgetz and Deputy Principal Alita Lee delivered a workshop to delegates titled The power of grit in enabling personal success in the Diploma Programme, where they shared QAHS’s strategic student wellbeing program that honours resilience and persistence.
“Our workshop shared the evolution and practical takeaway strategies of our campus-wide student wellbeing framework we’re now at the three-year mark with,” says Ms Rebgetz.
“The strategy has already improved student academic performance, generated a common language for our learning community and reduced the number of academic behavioural incidents.”