Creative Industries

A year of progress – in a different direction 

As a teacher and a parent, I’ve seen lots of emails flying about worrying that their child hasn’t achieved anything this year. So I thought I would make a couple of things clear: 

• Getting through this year in one piece is absolutely an achievement, and
• Sometimes, taking a break from traditional forms of education allows you to achieve in other ways.

To that end, I just wanted to point out a couple of major achievements that happened in 2020 by the students I have been working with. I’m sure there are hundreds of other stories out there from other students as well. 

Write a Book in a Day 

Not just one book, but two! We competed in the SIS Book in a Day competition, testing out our virtual teamwork, and ended up with an illustrated short story about a sentient lollypop, a blind mentor and an environmental activist.  

Then we participated in the National Write a Book in a Day competition – again solely online, and had to work with the prompts of a wizard who was also a basketball and a time travelling teen. You can read the resulting story online here. 

Huge shout outs to Ben, Tom, Cathal, Seb, Will, Oscar, Freddy and Mat for going above and beyond in two mammoth writing and artistic extravaganzas. 

Certificate II in Creative Industries 

This year was a mess for completing a practical VET course, but Mat, Ethan, Khang, Will and Jayden all managed to model, animate and upload an animation to YouTube using Maya and their imaginations. 

It got hectic at the end, but you can click on each of their names to see their completed animation, or check out the complete Creative Industries playlist here. 

The takeaway? Even when day-to-day teaching is disrupted, students can achieve great things with a desire to create and a curiosity about the world around them. 

Damian Perry

IT Domain Leader