English and Literacy

It’s hard to believe that our year 12 students have just two weeks of formal classes left before they officially start the revision period for their final exams. It has been a big year and we wish them all the best for their final exam on Wednesday October the 31st. It’s certainly a tough exam, probably one of the toughest they will ever have to do. Three essays in three hours. Even sitting for that amount of time can be challenging. We are confident however that, with enough revision and practice essays, our year 12 students will achieve their very best.

Our year 7 and 9 students participated in a year level spelling bee earlier in the term. Each class held their own spelling bees and nominated two finalists for the year level competition. We highly commend all our finalists for doing their very best in what can be a daunting and challenging experience. Congratulations to our winners!

Year 7

First place Grace Kuot
Second place Spencer Berry
Third place Yimiao Wang

Year 9

First place Thomas Crofts
Second place Richard Ha
Third place Roselyn Chang

Our year 8 students will be competing early next term and we wish them the very best in their endeavours.

Our junior and senior school debating teams have been achieving wonderful results and we sincerely congratulate them for their hard work and dedication. They meet regularly to workshop and refine their skills and they are showing improvement at every competition. Thank you to our dedicated staff Mandy Plumridge and Ben Karwan for giving up their time at school and in the evenings to train our teams and support them at competitions.

Across our year levels, our students have been using writer’s notebooks to foster their writing stamina and confidence. Teachers have been asking our students to engage in low stakes writing tasks to practice their skills and give them the freedom to experiment with different writing styles. Writing will become a major focus for our school in 2019 and we look forward to sharing some wonderful pieces that our students produce throughout the rest of next term.

On that note, I will leave you to read one of our year 7 student’s creative writing piece in response to our class novel Trash. Jordan has managed to beautifully capture the voice of a minor character in the novel using some beautiful imagery and descriptive language. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have.

Have a safe and relaxing break,

Carrie Wallis

English/Literacy

Leader of English and Whole School Literacy

Pia Dante’s Chapter

My name is Pia Dante - Raphael, Gardo and Rat have given me a chapter of my own to tell my part of the story. I owe those boys a great debt as they saved my life and have become my brothers over the journey. I am Jose Angelico's daughter and my part of the story begins when I received an urgent message from my beloved father, telling me to meet him at the Navaro Cemetery, where my mother and brother are buried. We often went to this place when we needed to have time to ourselves so I didn't think much about it. I never would have imagined the importance of what he had to tell me but I guess I figured that it would be him who told me, not three strange dumpsite boys that ended up becoming apart of my world.

The couple that had been looking after me (Rose and Sam) happily drove me to the Cemetery which took me by surprise at first because they had never really listened to me or did anything for me. I sadly discovered why sometime later. Rose and Sam had never been nice to me as they constantly told me that my father had abandoned me and that he didn't love me anymore. I was always alone at their house. I often did feel abandoned and was constantly lonely, I would sit in school sometimes and dream about the next time I would see him. I suppose that's why I never missed the chance to see my father.

It took some time to reach the cemetery as we came from the other side of the city. I could see all of the shops and stalls starting to sell decorations and candles for the Day of the Dead, even though it was a week away. I suddenly remembered that the shops and services were near the cemetery and my heart skipped a beat due to pure excitement.

Once we finally reached the cemetery Rose said, "just go into the cemetery and we'll come and pick you up soon," from the front seat of their big Landrover. I hesitantly nodded and scrambled out of the tall car (which was quite a struggle for me as I was so small). Once I was on the curb, Sam started to laugh and yelled, "nice knowing you kid!" and sped away down the street, howling with laughter. I stared after them, not quite believing that they'd just left me here alone. After a moment's hesitation, I figured that I was better off without them and I sprinted toward the entry gate.

As I raced through the rows and rows of graves I counted them. Most of the graves were littered with old, dead flowers that had been left by the families and the loved ones of the dead. There were angels of all different shapes and sizes watching over them, keeping them safe for their families. I passed a landmark that I recognised, a huge, pink angel towered over me, making me feel so small, so insignificant. I urged myself faster. This would be the first time that I'd seen my father for almost 3 months. He wrote often but I just wanted to see his face, to see him smile down at me, to hear his voice again. I was so excited that my small thin body had a sudden jolt of adrenaline which pushed me on.

It took me no time at all to locate our meeting place as we'd come here together often. I burst of excitement rushed through me as I saw my mother's grave, with my brother's stacked beside it. We couldn't afford to bury them in the ground so we had to rent a box. "Hi mum, hi Eladio" I whispered to the boxes. I felt an emotion nag at the back of my throat but ignored it and scanned around the area for my father, but there was no sign of him. So I climbed on top of my mother's box and waited. The view was always better from up here so that's where I decided to keep a look out from. By this time my little school dress was worn and dirty but I didn't mind so much as a sudden gush of cool breeze caressed my face and sent my long black hair pooling around me. I felt free for the first time in a long time as I looked out toward the sunset. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing my father, no one was going to tell me how alone I was and how weak I was so I let out a cry of pleasure that echoed across the graveyard. I sat up there and waited - I waited and waited and waited for the next few days…. but he never came.

I sat on that ledge, looking out over the cemetery for 5 days. I only got down once when a group of street kids invited me to eat something with them, but that was days ago now. I waited for him to come but he never did. Has he deserted me? Has he forgotten me? Does he love me anymore? I grew more tired and hungry every day. My body slowly started to stop functioning and by the fourth day, I was barely able to stay upright. I was so weak and helpless that I was physically unable to get down and got to the toilet. The world was being pulled out from under me and I was so powerless to do anything about it. Frustration and devastation hit me like a slap to the face. On the day that I was saved by the three boys, my vision had just started to blur when I saw them, three dirty dumpsite boys looking at my mother and brother's boxes.

They were frantically reading the plaques on the graves as if they were on the verge of a breakthrough. My curiosity got the better of me but despite my near death condition, I sat there watching them in ore. They lingered around the graves for a few minutes, reading the plaques until they got into some kind of argument or misunderstanding that I was unable to decipher. The taller one that I now know to be Gardo begun to get enraged but the other two (Rat and Raphael) just sat down with confused expressions. I suddenly lurched forward and my body shook with such force that a startled gasp escaped me. I needed help, I knew that, so I said in a nearly inaudible voice, "who are you looking for?"

The three boys turned around, attempting to locate me until one of them saw me and said in a baffled voice, "what did you say?" I repeated my question and they briefly told me that they were looking for Jose Angelico. I informed them that I didn't think he'd be coming when they asked me, "what is your name?"

I answered, "Pia Dante. My name is Pia Dante.” For some peculiar reason, they all looked like they were about to faint but at that moment I wasn't really worried about why because my stomach lurched and my vision started to go blotchy again. My body began to shake and there was a high pitch ringing in my ears. Seeing my small body starting to spasm in front of them they all reached for me as my eyes closed for what I thought would be forever.

I didn't remember being carried away, I can barely remember Rat, the smallest of the three boys, feeding me rice and making me drink water. He wrapped me up in a soft, warm blanket and often slept beside me. I don't know how long I was there for because time had just been a blur since they found me. I began to gain some of my lost energy back and was finally able to sit upright while Rat fed me some rice. Having Rat there, even though he was a stranger to me at that time, made me feel loved and wanted for the first time in a long time. I feel bad about saying this but I think that it was Rat who saved my life. Even Raphael and Gardo admit that it was Rat who did it. But I believe that it was all three of them who gave me a reason to live on, so I would like to thank you all so much! When I regained most of my strength back the three boys jumped into a wild story about my father taking 6 million from someone called Senator Zapanta. None of this made a great deal of sense to me. Once the story came to an end Raphael was looking at me with such pity that I asked what was wrong. I will always regret asking why. "I'm really sorry Pia but, your father's dead,” my heart dropped in my stomach, "he was killed by the police."

The world began to spin from under me again. "We're really sorry. He was a good man". I suddenly understood why Rosa and Sam had left me. They knew that he was dead so they dumped me as soon as they could. My beautiful father was dead and I would never see him again. He was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. Three silent tears rolled down my cheek. I was truly alone now. I had no one left. I started to shrink into myself and my body started to rack with the loud sobs that escaped me. I didn't care that I was crying in front of them. I didn't care about anything because there as nothing left that cared about me. The walls closed in on me and I started to cry. Suddenly I felt someone kneel beside me and pull me into an embrace. That one embrace followed by two more. All three boys just kneeled there hugging me for what seemed like an eternity. They were here, they cared. A sudden rush of unfamiliar warmth passed through me. From then on I knew that they would protect me, that they would be my family now. They smelt like home. "Everything's going to be okay.” From then on Pia Dante was not alone.

The next few days went by in a blur. Raphael, Gardo and Rat showed me my empty grave and I let them open it. Once it was open the boys immediately looked inside and were thrilled by what they found, 6 million dollars was inside a closely arranged crate! I thought that they were going to celebrate but they wasted no time. They were men on a mission. They bagged the money up and we were out of there in a matter of minutes. We travelled down the roads and all the way to the Behala dumpsite which is where the boys said they used to live. I could see the sadness in the