This term, 12 Aquinas students (Years 9 and 10) took part in the PSA Model United Nations. It is the second time the PSA has held this competition, this year the UN Youth have become involved which has only improved the event! Model United Nations or MUN is a competition that simulates the United Nations Security Council, where teams of three are assigned a specific country and hope to pass new resolutions into international law. Each PSA school was assigned a different country as can be seen below:

• Aquinas- UK/Niger/Malaysia/Estonia
• CCGS - Ireland/Vietnam/Tunisia
• GGS - United States of America
• Hale- India, St Vincent & Grenadines, Spain, Bolivia
• Scotch - Russia/ New Zealand
• Trinity - France, Mexico, South Korea, Australia
• Wesley - China, Norway

This competition was so enjoyable as we were able to take on the persona and policies of the country we were representing. MUN incorporates skills such as negotiating, public speaking and teamwork. In the PSA MUN we had to pass two resolutions about; Artificial Intelligent Weapons and Privacy of Data in Sport. Although the Council failed to pass both of these due countries such as Russia and China exercising veto power, we still had an amazing experience.

In addition to this the Year 10 team of Matteo Conte, Ethan Dixon and Matthew Vinci won the competition as they were awarded the number one team on the evening! I was also awarded ‘best helper’ for my role on the evening assisting my teammates throughout the course of the events in various ways. This competition allowed all the PSA schools to compete in something that wasn’t a sport which led to a different dynamic and arguably more competitive side for all of the Aquinas students. We all had a great time and we hope more teams can get involved next year!