AFTER hours of intense pressure and a tough line of questioning, a victorious Clifton College team accepted the prestigious title of 2015 BDO School Quiz champions.
This is the sixth year of the much-anticipated school competition – organised by the Durban office of international audit, tax and advisory firm, BDO – which sees four-member teams made up of Grade 10 and 11 pupils answering a variety of general knowledge questions.
A total of 217 pupils made up the 54 teams which took part in the round-robin competition, culminating with the hotly-contested finals held at Clifton College last Thursday, 14 May.
Quiz mistress, Kath Scott who is the history teacher at Clifton Preparatory School, put 120 questions to the eager participants covering a range of topics including history, geography, science, general knowledge, music, movies and even photographs.
Event organisers described this year’s BDO Schools’ Quiz as one of the “closest in the history of the six-year event” with the first half ending in a tie. However, Clifton College managed to clinch the title in the last round during a nail-biting tie-breaker, winning an impressive 85 points overall.
“It was another exciting event with the participants really impressing us with their general knowledge. One of the parents I was chatting to after the quiz described it as a ‘fantastic and fun’ event which really benefited the children,” said Sally Juckes, audit and assurance partner at the Durban office of BDO.
Juckes said that the quiz encouraged a drive for knowledge within the youngsters and pushed them out of their comfort zones.
Janine O’Connor of Books & Books said: “It was great to see the competitiveness of the kids as well as the camaraderie between schools. It was a fun and relaxed evening and we can’t wait to do it all over again next year!”
Each member of the winning team walked away with a BDO-branded mini iPod Shuffle. They also won R10 000’s worth of books to be donated to a disadvantaged school of their choice.
In second place, with just a one-point difference was Crawford College La Lucia, who fought hard until the very end. The team was awarded generous Books & Books vouchers for their effort. They were followed by Durban Girls’ High School in third place, also just one point off.
