On Thursday 26th May 2022, our Year 8 team competed in the Qld Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia’s 2022 Readers Cup Challenge at St Mary’s, Woodend. They went head to head with other schools in the Ipswich district to battle it out in a reading trivia competition. Leading up to the event, each member of the team read a novel, and met to discuss key ideas from their stories.

Readers Cup competitions challenge students to read widely, work collaboratively in a team, and continue developing a love of reading. It allows readers to compete at a regional and state level similar to sporting competitions, and to meet other students with an equal passion for books.

On the day, students were asked questions about the books they had read, and worked collaboratively to answer as many questions as possible. They demonstrated resilience and perseverance through challenges to place 8^th after five rounds of increasingly difficult questions. This is a personal best for the team of four, after they placed 12th last year. Well done team!

On the same day as the Readers Cup, our Year 8 Japanese students attended the excursion to Nerima Gardens, which included a guided tour of the Japanese gardens, a traditional tea ceremony, and the animal encounter. The students were particularly intrigued by the symbolism of the natural elements. Their recollections and impressions included:

              Gardens have curves because life has curves.

              Bridge is an important part of your life because it represents getting past an obstacle.

             Twists and turns in life are also represented as difficulties and hardships throughout life, bridge represents getting over them.

             Rocks represent stability and the things that don’t change.

             ‘Secret garden’ is another part of your life, closed off area of your life; represents love

            Life flows – rivers

The cultural experience was uplifting for all the senses of our students. The ‘secret garden’ is inspiring for the zen garden design at our school.

The student’s behaviour was exemplary and currently, they are completing their assessment of bilingual brochures of Nerima Gardens, while preparing for their Microsoft Teams exchange on Thursday with Sammu Matsuo Junior School in Japan! 

Term Two has seen Year 10 General English students delve into the world of creative writing, exploring how to best transport a reader to another place using a range of language techniques. The added challenge of writing a narrative based on set stimulus hasn’t daunted our students, who have refined their descriptive vocabulary and designed captivating plots. Emulating tasks in senior, the assessment this term challenges students to develop their creative writing piece under exam conditions. To prepare for this, students have engaged in many activities from vocabulary exercises, to stimulus-inspired writing with guiding prompts. Narrative exemplars and teacher examples have also allowed students to dissect and analyse how language choices effectively engage an audience. Not sure about you, but I’d like to read the rest of Ms McLeod’s story!!