Writing in the junior school continues to surprise and amaze teachers and parents. In our junior writing competition we had many very impressive entries.

The results of our 2015 competition are as follows:

Poetry:

First - Cuba Rust for The Artist's Hand

Second - Anna Denys for The Cottage

Third - Alice Houston-Page for Our Crib

Prose:

First Equal - Mary Locker

First Equal - Abby Hall

Third - Beth Lynch for Fallen

Formal Writing:

First Equal - Rosa Miller

First Equal - Olivia Bradfield

Some winning pieces from each section are published below:

The Artist's Hand

Hold the brush just so. Careful!

Not too tight, 

 You don't need so much pressure.

In this you must use

Respect,

                    restraint, 

                                          delicacy.

Never let frustration cloud your strokes.

Or the stars in your eyes

Won't          into the picture

               fall

You're s t r u g g l i n g To Create.

THE COTTAGE

The lake ripples with the

       silent breeze

and we canoe out to its

      depths.

The kids make miniature houses

      in the bank

scared of the spiders that lurk

      under the tiny bridges.

The leaves rustle as they are

      stomped on

stomped on by the

      happy families.

The wood smoke envelopes

      our senses

as the sausages cook

      on the heat.

The rusty gate creaks as

      the car drives down

releasing the children

       from its bowels.

The water race is blocked as we

      try to get water

so we unclog the leaves

      making our hands cold.

The fence jiggles beneath

      me

and I lose my balance and fall

      onto the rock below.

The metal bars meant for the

      grape vines

wobble dangerously as the children

      swing on them.

The sound of moaning as

       the kids complain

not wanting to sit down to eat on

      the cold cobblestones.

The warm fire heats

      us up

sipping from our boiling

      hot chocolates.

It is a luxury

      a pure loyalty

Of a small cottage

       in the wilderness.

Our Crib

Our crib was a jigsaw pieced together over the years.

We started off with an idea, an empty surface with no pieces.

When the planks of wood were nailed, the structure complete,

gradually the jigsaw came together, revealing the magic.

Each curtain, bed, floorboard and spoon added a piece to the enormous jigsaw.

Finally the once hazy picture became very clear.

The jigsaw was finished, except for one final piece,

the joy and memories to come for years after.

Mary Locker – Prose

Oranges. That is my first memory. I remember my mother holding me up amongst the leaves of an orange tree so that I could reach out my chubby hands and tug a juicy, golden sun from its branch.

Heat. That is my second memory. I remember a sweltering hot kitchen, a vat of sticky marmalade bubbling away on the stove, and my mother pressing a spoon into my hand so that I could make pretty patterns with it in our swirling concoction.

Laughter. That is my third memory. I remember my mother and I laughing until our stomachs hurt, eating warm marmalade sandwiches, and putting leftover orange peel in our mouths and making silly faces at each other.

Laughter. That is also my fourth memory. I remember my father tickling me until I was gasping for breath, and his pretending to laugh when I tried to copy him.

Panic. That is my fifth memory. I remember my mirth evaporating into fear as I watched my mother doubled over, heaving with violent coughs, and the feeling of helplessness because there was nothing I could do.

Confusion. That is my sixth memory. I remember trying to slip through the door of my mother's bedroom, and not understanding why she wouldn't speak to me, and pressing my cheek into the palm of her hand harder and harder until I thought I saw a wisp of a smile cross her face.

Tears. That is my seventh memory. I remember clutching my father so hard that it would have taken an age to prise me off him, and him holding me back just as tightly, and both of us trying to weep away the realization that we would never see my mother again.

These are my memories, my marmalade tears.

Abby Hall - Prose

October was the month of copper leaves and crudely rolled cigarettes. Too hot to wear a jacket, but too cold to wear a Halloween costume later than three o’clock in the afternoon. School classes droned on, mimicking the traffic over lunch breaks, and Christina Haski was spending her hours languishing in detention.

She was eight, and it was the first of many punishments to occur over the course of her school life.

Christina peeled off her hoodie and tapped her pen against her desk, impatient for the clock to complete a full circle.

The others had called names this time round, cupping their sweaty hands over their mouths and calling Christina 'Pocahontas'. She touched the scabbing cut on her forehead. At least they’d had it worse.

The door to the detention classroom entered, and Christina’s father stepped in, a cigarette perched on his thin lips. Without a word he took her hand and led her out, hurrying do they could be home before dark.

As they climbed into the old Toyota Corolla, Ahote finally spoke.

"How are you gonna do well in school if all you do is get into fights, eh?"

Christina shrugged, tossing her school bag into the back seat.

"They were calling me names, Dad. You always told me to fight back."

Her father shook his head, dropping the cigarette butt out the window as they drove. "There’s a time and place, Christie. Don’t you go ending up like me."

Christina looked at him. "Why not?"

Ahote sighed. "Your dad doesn’t make much money," he told her. "That’s why we rent the apartment from the Johnson’s, remember?"

His daughter’s expression was one of confusion. "But you’re nice. Why don’t they give you money for that?"

Ahote laughed bitterly. "Christie, being nice don’t pay for food. Being nice don’t pay for anything. Can you hand me the pack of Camels in the back seat?"

Christina reached behind her, and her small hand closed around the cigarette pack.

"Can I have one?" She asked as she helped her father light his tobacco. He laughed, properly this time.

"No, Christie. They’re bad for your lungs."

—

They parked on the side of the road, and jogged over the crosswalk to their apartment complex; a monstrous grey building with more floors than Christina could count on her fingers. They stepped inside the elevator and waited in silence until the contraption came to a shuddering stop on their floor.

The apartment was a shadow of the word; peeling wallpaper, a fridge with flickering lights, a dawdling Internet connection and unpredictable electricity cuts. Perhaps it had once been clean, but the mould had long since set in and a permanent chill afflicted the tenants of the building. The days were filled with the heat of summer and the nights were a blur of flashing lights and honking cars.

"Why don’t you go get changed," Christina’s father told her as he tossed the car keys on the small wood table in the kitchen. Christina shook her head.

"I gotta call Alyssa. She wants to have a sleepover."

"Is she coming over here?"

"No. I asked to go to her house."

Ahote tutted. "You can’t just invite yourself over."

"But our place is so gross. We don’t even have a TV."

Ahote looked sad for a second. He sighed again. "Christie, go to your room and do your homework, okay?"

"Okay. Can I still go for the sleepover?"

"…Sure. You can use the pay-phone downstairs."

"Thanks, Dad." Christina disappeared into her bedroom, stopping to grab her schoolbag on the way. Her father sank into one of the chairs— the one with springs jutting out of the sides and the frayed edges of fabric on the cushion.

After checking his daughter was still in her room, he went to the cupboard above the fridge and pulled out a bottle of cheap whiskey.

Ahote sunk lower in his chair and thought about what his daughter had said. Our place is so gross. We don’t even have a TV.

"You’ve gotta do well in school, Christie," Ahote said to himself, "or you’ll end up like me."

Olivia Bradfield - Formal Writing

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a well-known play by William Shakespeare that is still read today. I believe that an important idea in the text is dreaming and having dreams. This is shown in Bottom’s ambition, Helena’s undying love and Oberon, King of the fairies, wanting his wife to agree with him. All of these dreams get resolved, which I think is a good message to anyone with a big dream, and a prominent idea in the play.

From when we meet him (Act 1, Scene 2) Nick Bottom the Weaver is a loud, ambitious man who has big dreams. When the well-learned Peter Quince is handing out parts, Bottom is excited about his own, but also wants to play all of the others. He dreams big, stages in front of royalty, voices yelling his name. “Let him roar again. Let him roar again!” he says, whilst trying to take Snug the Joiner’s role of a lion.

All of his excitement pays off and even though he spends a night in a fairy kingdom, the play still manages to impress the Duke and Duchess and all members are “discharged, with honour” – his dream fulfilled.

Unrequited love hurts and many of us may find ourselves relating to Helena’s impossibly strong feelings for Demetrius, a man who wouldn’t look at her twice. She knows he is in love with Hermia, her dear friend, but still loves him even when he says “I am sick when I look on you.” She replies with “and I am sick when I do not look on you.” It takes a lot of love to follow someone into some strange old woods at night; however, it pays off in the end. Oberon, a fairy king, fakes pity on the young woman and sends his right-hand-man to put a potion in Demetrius’s eyes to make him fall in love with her. Though Puck manages to make a few mishaps with the flower juice, eventually Helena is happily engaged to the man of her dreams.

Just because you are a fairy does not mean you are immune to marriage issues and Oberon and Titania are a great example of this. Oberon is jealous that Titania has a changeling boy in her possession and for some reason wants it. This leads to a few arguments and after a lot of careful thinking, Oberon sends Puck to sprinkle love juice on his wife’s eyes so that she falls in love with a man who sports a donkey’s head. After a disastrous night for Titania and one of intense confusion for Bottom, Oberon decides she has learnt her lesson and takes the effects of the juice away. Titania and him are now happily married again, just like he wanted them to be.

Dreaming and setting goals are both important skills used in real life and this text, which is why I believe that daring to dream is a very important idea. Many individuals had goals and went on to achieve them: Bottom the loud mouth worker is now a notable actor and Helena is happily married to the man of her dreams. Oberon also finally gets his wife to love him well once again. All of these outcomes are achieved by dedication, hard work and a little bit of fairy magic.

Rosa Miller - Formal Writing

One of the main ideas in A Midsummer Night’s Dream was that of discord and concord over love. In this essay, I will explore how the setting – ancient Greece and the Fairy Kingdom – helped Shakespeare to examine the social issues of patriarchy and gender battles from a distance and Elizabethan point of view.

With the opening of the play, we learn that ancient Greece is a patriarchal society where a father can order his daughter to die if she does not marry the man he chooses. This is the fate facing Hermia, whose father, Egeus, has commanded her to marry Demetrius, a man she doesn’t love. Similarly, the forthcoming wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta is only happening because Theseus conquered Hippolyta’s people, the Amazons. Theseus says ‘Hippolyta, I wooed thee with thy sword, and won thy love by doing thee injuries.’ In the Fairy Kingdom, Oberon humiliates Titania and attempts to take her foster child from her.

However, Shakespeare’s female characters are discontent with the male dominance. They are bold and defiant. Hermia talks back to her father and runs away. Hippolyta expresses her unhappiness with Theseus. Titania defies Oberon, and Helena sets off a chain reaction resulting in the entire plot of the play by doing what she is not supposed to do. These characters are almost recognisably modern, and certainly share many modern views.

The device of fairy magic to mess things up and fix them again seems far-fetched, but actually allows us to see our own behaviour more clearly. We see how love can cause unpleasantness and madness; love is not reciprocated, lovers are fickle, love goes stale and love makes us foolish.

The play ends with the lovers united and the discord the lovers previously experienced has been resolved, and fairy magic has helped this. We are helped to believe it psychologically when we see them laughing at the mayhem in another world – that of the play performed by the ‘crude mechanicals’. And so the play finishes, with the pairs of lovers, and concord over discord of love.

To summarise, discord and concord was an important idea in A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it shows how, while many things change through the centuries, the way human beings love has stayed the same.