FPS Students are World Champions!

Five of our students have recently returned from the USA as World Champions in the field of Future Problem Solving (FPS) after winning with their Dramatic Presentation against schools from all over the world.

At the beginning of June, the Kristin School FPS team consisting of: Haya Awni, Andrew Chen, Verity Johnson, Amy Martin, Hamish Mouat and Patrick Oxnam, travelled to Michigan State University to compete in the International Future Problem Solving Conference against approximately 184 other Global Issues teams.

The North Shore students had won the title of 2008 Middle Division Champions at last year's National Competition and for the second time, qualified to compete overseas and represent New Zealand.

Future Problem Solving (FPS) is a challenging programme where students discover rich and varied ways of thinking and are taught how to think, not just what to think. It is based on a future scenario - an imagined scene of the future. Students work in teams of four with a coach who facilitates their research into the topic. Students analyse potential problems set in the future scene and then find ways to solve those problems.

The international conference is split into two parts, two thirds of the competition is a booklet competition with a future scene where challenges and solutions are developed. The last third is the Dramatic Presentation of the action plan, when the best solution is elaborated on and presented in dramatic form to the entire division. The Kristin team went through days of preparation for the competition parts; writing lyrics for the presentation, researching facts and solution layouts.

At the awards presentation ceremony, Kristin were both astonished and elated to receive 1st place in the Dramatic Presentation of the action plan, and also to receive placing in the top third of the world for the booklet competition.

“It was only after going through Chicago airport with a two foot high trophy, attempting to explain the nature of FPS to jet-lagged Americans, that we realised we were actually World Champions!” said team member Amy Martin.

From the connecting flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, the team arrived in Los Angeles at 11pm. After an 8am to 1am day at Disney land, the team boarded a plane to New Zealand and home.

It was an adrenalin and excitement-filled 10 days when avenues that had never been considered opened up to the students. Overall, the Kristin FPS team had a fantastic time at the competition and exploring the sights of LA and Chicago, and were both amazed and incredibly proud to become World Champions.

The team and coaches would like to thank everyone who supported their trip which led to this success, particularly the generous donation of The Trusts Charitable Foundation which helped to fund the students' travel.