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Our mission is to inspire and prepare every student for a successful future through academic excellence, active citizenship, and humanitarian ideals. See all the different ways our students are challenged inside and outside the classroom and how they are thriving in this enriching environment. Whether on-campus or independently selected, these achievement are noteworthy and deserving of recognition. Want to send them congratulations? Email sayhello@topekacollegiate.org, and we’ll pass it along!
The Mathletics team is small, but mighty. After a full semester of competitions, a group ventured to Topeka High School to engage in one final contest. And the best way to end the season is with not one, but two big wins. The team of Ivan Beach (7), Will Boyd (8), Siddarth Datti (6), Kareem Najm (6), and Nithya Suravarpu (7) finished the day in a tie for first place, eventually losing by decision. The students also competed individually in either the Seventh Grade Division or the Eighth Grade Division. Our two sixth grade students, of course, had to compete in these divisions as well, with Siddarth winning the seventh grade title, and Kareem taking gold in the eighth grade division.
Congrats on the hard work and achievement of all five of our competitors.
The Mathletics Team participated in the Regional Competition on Saturday, February 4th. Kareem, Owen, and Kennedy represented Topeka Collegiate. Two of them advanced to the finals, and competed in the Countdown, with Kareem placing 7th and Kennedy placing 8th. Congrats to these students and their coach, Mrs. Tamara Buche.
The Quiz Bowl Team continued their unbeaten streak (to at least seven years) as they competed in their first competition of the school year. Both the varsity and junior varsity teams won their respective tournaments, sweeping all opponents at the Christ the King Invitational. Following those divisional championships, the two teams competed against each other, with the junior varsity team coming out on top. Congrats to both teams and their coach, Mr. Kevin Simons.
FIRST® LEGO® League guides youth through STEM learning and exploration at an early age. From Discover, to Explore, and then to Challenge, students will understand the basics of STEM and apply their skills in an exciting competition while building habits of learning, confidence, and teamwork skills along the way.
Sid, Harsha, and Ashwin independently entered the FIRST LEGO League with three other students from the Washburn Rural District. Their team, Roadrunners Robotics, along with 27 other teams, had to research a real-world problem and develop a solution. They then had to design, build, and program a robot using LEGO EV3 or SpikePrime, with the competition on a table-top playing field. The problem selected by this team was power outages impacting garage doors. They designed a solution to store energy used by the garage doors via kinetic energy until needed during a power outage. The team now advances to regional competition in Kansas City on January 28, 2023. They're coached by Mr. Chamesh Rajasekhara. Great job, Roadrunners Robotics!
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The Topeka Collegiate Spelling Bee was held last Friday, January 20. Mr. Elian Mota, Middle School Language Arts teacher, directed the event. The following students competed in the regional-qualifying event in Assembly Hall:
3rd grade: Brynley and Toby
4th grade: Brianna and Kinley
5th grade: Ashwin and Mina
6th grade: Olive and Tucker
7th grade: Daniel and Moxy
8th grade: Kennedy and Riley
Special congratulations to our champion, Kinley, on her repeat victory, having won last year while in grade three. The other two finalists were Toby and Tucker, finishing in a tie for second place.
The International Academic Competition hosts numerous team and individual competitions that range from history to humanities and everything in between. The competitions are geared toward primary and secondary students of all ages. Ashwin knew he wanted to participate in a Geography Bee, so during the summer, he researched until he found one that interested him. During his free time at school and at home, he studied any chance he got. He said his goal for next year is to make it to the international competition and not just the nationals. We wish him luck at the national level competition in Washington, DC this summer. What a testament to Ashwin’s strong work ethic, love of learning, and perseverance in preparation.
Students in grades four through eight engage in an annual assessment each year, the ERB tests. ERB (Educational Records Bureau) provides testing across the curriculum to measure language skills and abilities (vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing mechanics, and writing concepts and skills), mathematics concepts and understanding, and critical thinking. Both verbal reasoning (the ability to analyze information and draw logical inferences, to recognize analogical verbal relationships, and to generalize verbal categorical attributes) and quantitative reasoning (the ability to analyze mathematical concepts and principles, to make generalizations, and to compare quantities mathematically) are assessed as well.
There are several “scores” made on each individual’s performance. Students will receive a raw score, which represents the number of correct responses on each subtest; a scale score, which is based in the actual number of correct responses as well as the difficulty level of those questions in each subtest; a percentile rank that indicates how many students in a norm group had scores that were the same or lower than your student’s score (this is not the percentage of questions answered correctly); and a stanine score. Stanines are calculated by dividing the students in the norm group into nine subgroups based on their scores. The middle stanines include more students than those at either the higher or lower groups.
The ERB compiles the data of our students and compares that with selected norm groups. The norm group used for our reporting is students enrolled at other Independent Schools. Therefore, we are not comparing scores with public school counterparts, but rather with students in the independent school environment and culture. Therefore, when the complete battery of tests are completed by our students, ERB will begin the data analysis. Our reporting will include three types of data: Individual Student Scoring, Group Reports, and Roster Reports.
Additionally, Topeka Collegiate is compiling trend data over the course of several years. This data will be formatted and shared with the Topeka Collegiate community later in the school year. That trend data will cover yearly grade level comparisons (eg. comparing just each specific grade level of students over several years) and cohort data (which follows the group scores of specific groups as they progress from year to year). We will be excited to share this information later in the school year. Be sure to check back here for the data trend!
Starting in November all students in grades four through six will take the first of five Math Olympiad tests. These tests each consist of five multiple-step problem-solving challenges. After this test, the students will also take an Olympiad in December, January, February, and March. Student scores are recorded, and then submitted to the Math Olympiad organization. The scores from each will be accumulated, and we will be notified of the results, recognizing any Topeka Collegiate students who place in the top scores. Be sure to check back here for the results throughout the year!
Math Olympiad #1
Math Olympiad #2
Math Olympiad #3
Math Olympiad #4
Math Olympiad #5