Balestier campus organized the first Inter School Quiz Competition in commemoration of the Independence Day on 14th August. A Rolling Trophy has been instituted by GIIS Balestier for the students of Class 3. The subject for this year’s quiz was: India- our Motherland (topics included: Places of tourist attraction, famous personalities, culture, states and capitals, history and current affairs).

The competition was open to all the students of Class 3 from the three GIIS institutions in Singapore.

After the preliminaries, four contestants were short-listed from each of the 3 campuses. All the contestants came together at GIIS Balestier for the final showdown. The final line- up of teams was:

Team A Tejas Ketkar and Adwait Karthik (EC)
Team B Varsha Kanitkar and TRS Madhav (EC)
Team C Shruti Mishra and Simran Sokhi (QT)
Team D Yamini Gupta and Neeraja Menon (QT)
Team E Jai Anand and Vijay Siddharth (BL)
Team F Sandhya R and Dhruv Sirsikar (BL)

The quiz was carried out very competently, with an interesting power point presentation as well as a scorekeeper, timekeeper and a hostess to conduct the rounds. Quiz participants from East Coast and Queenstown campuses had come with their co-students to cheer them on. Mr Kaustubh Bodhankar, Country Director, Singapore and Mr Winston Gomez, Principal, Balestier joined the students and teachers as the Quiz rules were being explained to the participants and the keen student audience by Ms Melissa Maria, Vice-Principal, Balestier, who was the Quiz hostess.

Four challenging rounds of questions and answers revealed the level of general awareness regarding India among the 8 year olds.

Round 1, titled ‘Enchanting India’ started with team A.
Team D won an early lead in this round by answering many pass questions.

Round 2 was the Auditory Challenge round and the questions tested the ability of quiz participants in identifying musical instruments and lyrics of patriotic songs.
Team B led the scoreboard in this round.

As the competition progressed, it became a challenge for the teachers and the Quiz host to keep the cheering student audience quiet. Several students became excited when they knew the answers to the quiz questions and the discussion reached a crescendo at times.

Round 3, the ‘Visual Treat’ round, invited teams to identify costumes, dance forms and the tourist spots of India, which were shown as visuals on a large screen.
Teams C & D shared the lead in this round.

Round 4, a Rapid Fire round consisted of 10 questions asked rapidly in a short time frame.
Team F stepped up to the challenge in this last round.

Mr Winston congratulating all the Quiz participants

Mr Winston and Ms Melissa with all the Quiz participants and winners

In the final score tally, Team E, were declared the winners.
The First runner up was team D and the second runner up was team B.

Student audience from the East Coast, Queenstown and Balestier excitedly answered questions, which were meant for them. The students who answered the questions correctly were given special prizes at the end.

Mr. Winston Gomez, Principal, Balestier, awarded the Inter School Quiz Rolling Trophy to the winners and certificates to the First and Second Runners-up teams. It was a proud moment for Team E - Jai Anand and Vijay Siddharth of Balestier campus to win the trophy.

Teachers from all the campuses expressed appreciation for the organizers of the Quiz competition, which brought forth effort from students to learn more about India. It gave the students an opportunity to meet the co-students from other campuses, while competing in a formal Quiz format at the same time.