Congratulations to our senior philosophers participating in the first round of the Senior Ethics Olympiad, resulting in a team silver medal for Eve Ardagna, Mia Bek, Angelina Filipovski, Allegra Musca and Kate Pitman-Fernandez.
The Senior Ethics Olympiad in May 2025 was a fantastic experience for the 10 competing students. It was great to see them put into practice everything they had been preparing for in their weekly practice sessions. Many students who competed have been participating in the Ethics Olympiad since their earliest years at Santa Sabina. It is very rewarding to see a nervous Year 7 student grow into a confident and eloquent senior speaker. Students really enjoyed talking to other teams and hearing their opinions on the sometimes controversial ethical dilemmas.
‘I believe that the Olympiad’s focus on finding common ground between different (and sometimes opposing) perspectives through respectful ethical discussion in order to strengthen a common understanding of an issue and work towards meaningful solutions is so important, especially in a context where there is increasing social division and a lack of respectful discourse on many topics.’
Kate Pitman-Fernandez
Year 12
Students not only get the opportunity to speak to students from other Australian schools, they are also meeting with academics from universities across the world who provide useful feedback, whilst retaining a casual and conversational tone with the students.
‘Everyone is really light-hearted, so if you make a mistake, you don’t feel embarrassed, you feel supported and can laugh it off.’
Davina Rajkumar
Year 10
The Olympiad offers a unique balance between competition and philosophy. Students are simultaneously struggling with time limitations and the feeling of not being listened to or understood whilst trying to deliver polite, academic arguments about their way of thinking.
‘Sometimes the opposition did not fully listen to our points, which was kind of frustrating. Personally, I found it challenging to develop and present my ideas in a sophisticated manner with a time constraint. The event itself was both fun and stressful because of its competitive nature.’
Gaby Indra
Year 11
Both teams performed remarkably well, and we look forward to the Purple team’s participation in the finals in June.
