This week the annual collaboration between Tauranga Girls’ College and Books A Plenty on Spring St begins.

During Term 1, Year 9 students have been learning about fairy tales. We have had the opportunity to study different fairy tales from all around the world, some dating back thousands of years. We studied the shared elements of fairytales and the conventions of good writing.

At the end of the unit, the students worked on creating their own story. Their story has to be localised, 450 words and most importantly…magical.

Head of Junior English Laura Currie said: “This year’s stories were highly crafted and original. The localisation content was vivid, and we were very impressed with the students’ ability to write a story in a concise and interesting way. Congratulations to all year 9s, but particularly our top placements.”

This year we had tales that included enchanted native animals; very memorable villains including stoats and ferrets; settings that included Matakana and the Kaimai Ranges, and innovative solutions to evil spells and paradigms. The marking of all these stories was an absolute pleasure! Bookstore owner Sherree Brown said,

“The exhibition creates a wonderful talking point for our community, and we have placed some of this year’s stories in our recommended texts section. The quality of the stories is again exceptional, and we look forward to our month-long exhibition with Tauranga Girls’ College every year.”

This year’s winners are:

Overall Winner

• Lucy Neary

Top Year 9 Stories

• Mya Windelborn

• Ayoung Chang

• Nina Varley

• Heidi Askin

• Alex Ormsby

• Annabelle Smith

• Drew Kenny

• Flora Saifi

• Georgia Milner

• Leilani Patira

• Alaina Lawrie

• Kaea Price

We are looking forward to next year’s stories already. Please do pop down to Books A Plenty to see all of our Year 9 stories and spend a lovely morning browsing our local independent bookstore.