iServi News | 17 March 2023 | Term 1, Week 7
On Thursday March 16th, Servite had a team of 4 Year 8 students compete in the FUSE Cup Just Dance23 eSports State Competition.
The year 8 students involved were Rosalia Macri (AN), Harper Wilson (SA), Alessia Gioffre (AN) and Sofia Fazari (SA).
The competition took place at Methodist Ladies’ College and Servite College were one of eight teams participating. The overall winning team and individual points champion on the day would receive an invitation to The FUSE Cup eSports National Festival in Queensland later this year. The stakes were high, and the vibe was electric as each student took their place on stage against the other teams to score as many points as possible and all the other students got behind them and cheered them on. Each student danced 5 randomly selected songs with the aim to get the maximum score possible and then the 4 students scores were added together to make the team total with the highest scores proceeding to the next round where they would dance again. This taught the students a valuable lesson in teamwork which is one of The FUSE Cup’s values, along with integrity, strength and inclusion.
The Servite College team danced incredibly and progressed into the Semi-finals where each student had to dance another randomly selected song and again all scores were added up for the team. The Servite College team were just short and did not progress to the Grand Final and finished 5th overall which is an outstanding achievement as this is the first year a Servite College team has participated.
The FUSE Cup is immensely proud to be in partnership with Australia’s eSafety Commissioner and Kids Helpline. Throughout the day there were valuable lessons learnt about eSports and gaming and digital wellbeing. This means to have balance and remember to; have regular breaks and participate in physical activity, socialise with family & friends in person to maintain social and emotional connections, get good sleep and minimise screen time prior to bed and to eat well & drink water. Also, the students were educated on how to be safe online and where they can go for help and access free support services for any issues whatsoever, with the Kids Helpline message being “Anytime. Any Reason.” Besides to dance and have fun with our friends, and encourage positive connections with other schools, the message and goal for students on the day was to aim to improve online safety and further raising awareness for students, while helping younger gamers have safer and more positive experiences online.
A couple girls gave a snippet about being involved on the day:
Rosalia: “Being involved in The FUSE Cup Just Dance Competition was a great opportunity. It was great to work together and cheer each other on and have fun dancing.”
Harper: “As well as the dancing it was really good to learn about cyber safety and how to handle any issues that come up when online and where we can go for help.”
We look forward to entering again next year and working towards claiming that invitation to the National Festival.
