UAE National History Bee and Bowl Success

Written by Inshirah Meer from Year 9B:

On Friday the 13th April, three teams from BIS Abu Dhabi journeyed to Cranleigh to compete in the UAE National History Bee and Bowl. The History Bee and Bowl are two history quiz competitions in English which are held around the world. The Bee is for individual students; the Bowl is for teams. The top students and teams qualify for the 2018 IHBB and IGB Asian Championships on 15-17 June 2018 in Khao Lak, Thailand and the 2018 International History Olympiad in Berlin on 14-22 July.

Within the competition there were three age divisions: Middle school – kids born from 2003 (Year 9) and onwards, Junior varsity (year 10 & 11) – all the students born before the September of 2003, and Varsity - IB Students.

After a long day of answering substantially difficult history and general knowledge questions, a number of our students reigned victorious: Balint Janescko was crowned the individual History Champion of the UAE, Zain Farooq came in as a close runner up. This duo also won first place in their age division making them the Varsity champions of the UAE.

Our middle school team surpassed all expectations by beating Brighton A, Belvedere A (both varsity teams) and Cranleigh B thus making them the 2018 UAE champions. Their success over the older students qualifies this team for the Olympiad semifinals.

If all goes according to plan, they will be travelling to Phuket, Thailand to compete and hopefully win before proceeding to the finals in Berlin, Germany.

• Representing BIS Abu Dhabi in the Middle School division was a team made up of Year 9 students:

Inshirah Meer, 9B, Team Captain
Saeif el Gaebali,9D
Mahra al Messaybeh, 9A
Mohammed Azouz, 9C
Kamilla Ariffianti, 9D
Omar Gaber,9D

• Our Junior Varsity team consisted of:

Yasmin Al Rawi,10, Team Captain
Hannah Toronto,10
Fahd Raza,10
Camilla Steffenino,10
Solemn le Guyon, 11a

• Our Varsity representatives were:

Zain Farooq, 13B
Balint Janescko,13B

Mr Boulton accompanied us and was a question reader during the matches.