Strong and Able Writing Group

Members meet weekly to enter competitions such as the Kotuitui Writers Challenge and the Toi Toi book series. Mrs Hooper-Corbett is the teacher who guides the students and gives them feedback on their writing. Organised by the Kotuitui Community of Learning, the Kotuitui Writers Challenge is open to all year levels and involves Turangawaewae, meaning "Our place to stand". It's about students exploring their personal connections to our local area—Titirangi, Piha, Glen Eden—through their stories. 

Celebrating the creative spirits of children, the Toi Toi competition is another one we commonly enter. Toi Toi is a book series, which is filled with inspiring writing from across New Zealand, where competitions are held to decide who gets published in the next issue of the book. Personally, the Strong and Able Writers Group has been phenomenal, enabling me to further my love of writing. Most importantly, it supplied a calm and quiet space for writers to do what they do best; write.

By Kobe Cannell, Room 34

Kotuitui First Place 2023 Year 7&8

Karekare Beach

Albertine Drumm,Year 8

Whakarongo ki te hau e hamumu ana ki te ngahere.

Whakarongo ki nga ngaru e whiti ana ki uta.

Arotahi ki te tui, ka karanga puta noa i te maru o te rakau. Whakarongo ki te tangi o te kata a nga tamariki e toua ana te matimati ki te wai.

Whakamātauria te wai tote e pupuhi ana ki te hau.

Tirohia te ra e whiti ana i runga i te one pango.

He maha nga mea o te ao hei wheako. No reira kia tino whai hua.

Listen to the breeze as it whispers to the forest .

Hear the waves washing against the shore.

Focus on the tui, calling across the tree canopy.

Hear the peals of laughter from children dipping a toe in the water.

Taste the salt water splashing up into the air.

See the sunlight twinkling upon the black sand.

There are many things in life to experience.

So make the most of it.

Kotuitui Second Place 2023 Year 7&8

Natures Healing

Phoebe Stephenson, Year Eight

Shivering in my flannel pyjamas, I stepped onto the wooden porch outside my home. I was hoping nature would erase the fear imprinted in my mind by a vivid nightmare. I hurried down the stairs, eager to be outside, feel the ground beneath my feet, and breathe in the night air. I needed to reassure myself this was real, and not my dream. As I stepped off the stairs and onto the grass, I listened to the gurgling of the Oponuku stream that flowed down from the Waitakere Ranges, winding its way through Henderson.

Silhouetted against the deep blue sky were ferns, waving their slim graceful fronds as if in time to a melody only they could hear. A tall, spindly kowhai tree - drab then - became a giant bouquet of yellow blossoms in the summer, and the tuis would come and drink its sweet nectar.

A breeze laced with a Roro’s call and crickets chirping picked up, reaching out with delicate fingertips, playfully tossing my hair about my face, and sending clouds bathed silver in the moon’s radiance scuttling across the sky. Those clouds were like the embodiment of every good and beautiful dream and looked as if they would scatter into a million pieces if I were to touch them. I gazed up at the night sky sprinkled with thousands of stars, scraps of light bravely peeking through the cuts in the fabric of the universe.

Gradually, I relaxed, my shoulders losing tension as my heartbeat slowed from its rapid staccato. The terror I had felt when I slept faded into nothingness, while a great calm settled over me. The adrenalin that had flooded my body during my nightmare disappeared and I was left feeling exhausted. Turning, I trudged back up the stairs, struggling to keep my eyelids propped open. Then I stepped inside and closed the sliding door behind me…