Parliament Prize

In Term 3, the Year 5/6 students were offered the opportunity to participate in the Parliament Prize. Students were tasked with creating a 90-second video, replicating a Member’s Statement, and sharing what they would say to parliament if they were an MP. The students who chose to participate spoke about issues they feel passionate about, such as homelessness, climate change, and promoting cleaner schools. 

Across Victoria, there were over 1000 entries from across 200 schools. Excitingly, Elsternwick Primary School received two awards! 

Molly D of 5/6A received a Highly Commended for her video about children’s voice being heard. 

And taking out first place for Year 5/6 in Victoria was Taj D of 5A, and her video about restoring the Elster Creek Canal! Congratulations Taj, this is an incredible achievement. 

If you would like to watch Taj’s video, you can click the link here.

Hi everyone, I'm Taj and I won the 2023 Parliament Prize. Here's a bit about my topic and why it was important to me:

I did my topic on restoring the Elster Creek Canal, just by the school.  This is important to me because I normally ride to school and when I was young, I always didn't like the look of it. So when I got the opportunity to have my voice in parliament, I took the chance to say something important to me. And here's a little bit about my topic.

In 1899 Williams Thwaits built the Elster Creek Canal to drain the Elwood wetlands. The problem is he turned a beautiful natural waterway into a concrete canal. They also did this on the other side of Melbourne to the Moonee Ponds Creek. But in great news, it is now being changed back to a natural creek. And we need to do the same here. Thanks for listening.