Some schools try Urban Quest once. Nazareth College keeps coming back — and for their Year 12 Mathematics Methods students, it has become the only excursion they do all year.
That’s not a small thing. For a cohort of students who spend the year working through one of the most demanding secondary school subjects in Victoria, a day out of the classroom has to earn its place. Victor Brusco and Jotishma Singh, the teachers who brought 35 students to Melbourne’s CBD for a fully hosted Urban Quest excursion, explained exactly why Urban Quest is the one activity that makes the cut every time.
The Only Excursion That Fits a Maths Cohort
Urban Quest is not the obvious choice for a mathematics excursion. There are no formulas, no equations, no subject-specific content. But Victor and Jotishma were clear about why it works so well for this particular group.
“As a maths group, we don’t do a lot of excursions. So this is one that is really doable. It’s one that they enjoy doing. For us, it’s been a really good experience doing Urban Quest.”
The connection to mathematics isn’t incidental. Victor described what the team was genuinely hoping students would develop during the day:
“One of the big things for today is their ability to find a problem they haven’t encountered before and to actually use logic and use their reasoning skills and their ability to rationally solve a problem. That’s one of the big things. The problem solving aspect — that’s important, but one of the things we really want them to excel in is working on that aspect of things in terms of the theoretical side that they work on in every lesson.”
In other words, Urban Quest gives these students a live version of the skill set they spend all year building in the classroom — applied under time pressure, in an unfamiliar environment, with real consequences for their team. For a group preparing for VCE examinations, that’s not a distraction from their studies. It’s a practical extension of them.
A Year of Anticipation Built In
One of the most revealing moments in the interview was Jotishma’s description of how Urban Quest functions within the school year — not just as an excursion, but as a motivational structure:
“I think it’s a good incentive from the beginning of the year that they know something is coming and they are working towards it as well. So it gives them that extra bit of motivation — that if you do well, we are going to have a fun day in the city.”
“The students look forward to it and they know this is only possible if they’re doing Methods, and it is in Year 12, so it’s a privilege in a way. And it gives them that motivation to look forward to. When they come back, I think it’s a good way to finish off the year — the final term — and then looking forward to the exams. So it’s a good kind of winding off as well.”
This is an insight worth sitting with. Urban Quest isn’t just being used as a reward or a fun day out. It’s functioning as a structured motivational anchor — something teachers can reference at the start of the year, point to throughout the year, and deliver at the end of the year as a genuine payoff. For a high-achieving, high-pressure cohort, that kind of intentional sequencing matters.
Last Year’s Trophy Still on the Classroom Wall
Nazareth College’s history with Urban Quest adds another dimension to the story. Last year’s group finished in one hour and ten minutes — narrowly missing the leaderboard by just a few minutes. Read more and watch the students’ interview in this article. The trophy they won for their team performance, however, stayed in the classroom for the rest of the year.
“My group had the trophy. It was displayed — we had some photos about it — and it was displayed in the classroom for the rest of the year. So that was a highlight for them in that group.”
That detail matters more than it might first appear. A trophy on a classroom wall for an entire year is a visible, ongoing reminder of what Year 12 maths students are capable of when they work together outside their usual environment. For the students who came after — this year’s cohort — it was a benchmark and a challenge.
This year they answered it. The winning team finished in 58 minutes 41 seconds, landing confidently in 10th place on the Urban Quest Leaderboard. The second and third placed teams from Nazareth also finished with times that would have placed them in the top 10 individually — a result that speaks to the overall quality and organisation of the group, not just one standout team.
What the Teachers Noticed on the Day
Victor and Jotishma were asked whether they noticed anything different in how students worked together during Urban Quest compared to a typical school day. The answer was consistent with what teachers observe across Urban Quest events — the competitive format draws something out of students that a classroom rarely does:
“Probably just the enthusiasm they showed. I mean, they’re enthusiastic normally, but more so doing Urban Quest. Working together as a team — one of the differences is that the outcome, the final result, was something tangible. Whereas often in the classroom, I mean, it is tangible, but the result isn’t quite as immediate as it is on Urban Quest.”
The immediacy of the result is a specific feature of the Urban Quest format that rarely gets named explicitly, but which Victor identified precisely. In a classroom, feedback on performance is delayed — tests are marked, results come later, progress is incremental. In Urban Quest, the consequence of every decision is immediate. Teams feel the effect of a wrong answer, a missed clue, or a poor navigation choice in real time. That immediacy changes how people engage, and it’s particularly resonant for students who spend most of their year working toward outcomes that are weeks or months away.
Organised, Competitive and Ready
Urban Quest hosts see hundreds of school groups across the year. Nazareth College stands out as one of the most disciplined and well-organised groups the team has worked with — and it shows in the results. The fact that three separate teams finished with top-10 times is not luck. It reflects a cohort that arrived prepared, took the briefing seriously, and executed as a unit rather than a collection of individuals.
Victor acknowledged the competitive side of his students:
“Looking back to the group last year, they certainly had a really good experience. They were very competitive, and it was good that that side of them could come out in the competition side of things. Got them motivated. Got them really thinking, working together as teams.”
And Jotishma on what students would still be talking about the following week:
“The trophy. I’m sure the winners will be talking about who won and there’ll be a bit of bragging going on. But look, I think they’ll just reflect on the experience they’ve had. Hopefully they will draw some of the qualities and things they were able to learn today — the problem-solving skills — and hopefully they can draw on those and use those in their studies moving forward. Especially leading into exams.”
Would They Recommend Urban Quest?
Victor’s recommendation was direct:
“Definitely. It’s a good team building exercise and it’s good for any number of kids as well — large group or small group. If you want to get that team building and the bonding and then get that motivation and competitiveness, that works very well with Urban Quest.”
For teachers weighing up whether a competitive city-based challenge is right for a high-achieving, exam-focused year level, Nazareth College’s experience across two consecutive years is a clear answer. The problem-solving skills, the team dynamics, the competitive structure, and the tangible result — all of it maps directly onto what a Mathematics Methods cohort needs from a day outside the classroom.
And the trophy will probably end up on the wall again.
If you’re planning a secondary school excursion for a similar cohort, see how other Melbourne schools have approached it — Lyndhurst Secondary College brought their VCE VM Year 12 students back for a fourth consecutive year and Kilvington Grammar’s Year 9 winning team shared what made their day different.
Victor Brusco and Jotishma Singh are Year 12 Mathematics Methods teachers at Nazareth College. Urban Quest delivered a Melbourne CBD school excursion for their Year 12 cohort as part of the school’s end-of-year program.
Explore Urban Quest’s secondary school excursions →
