This year, Week 7 of Term Three was all about Book Week! This year’s theme was “Symphony of Stories” and the school committed.

It started on the Monday with a brilliant Nature Writing Workshop led by author Naomi Woodward, who led a very engaged and successful classroom full of keen writers through finding inspiration in the natural world. Naomi also generously gave a private workshop to our two Short Story Competition winners, Shali Hu and Shreya Hosamane Sunilkumar- well done, girls!

Tuesday saw the hotly contested Staff vs Student debate, on the topic “Mandatory Reading Lists Kill the Joy of Reading”. The students- Mikayla Doyle, Charlotte Doyle, and Harriet Langford- took the affirmative, with the staff- Emma Sproule, Scott Jones, and Amanda Pate- argued the negative. The judges narrowly awarded the victory to the students, with the best individual speaker award going to Ms Pate. (Mrs Boxall would also like it known that she was firmly on the teachers’ side of the issue.)

Wednesday afternoon had a small but perfectly formed QuickWrites competition in the IC.

Competitors Jessica Diiorio, Abby Field, Cypress Daly and Isabelle Cannell all flexed their creative writing muscles, providing excellent stories from the prompts set up by Ms Dubocanin. Congratulations to Jessica, who took the honours, and indeed to all participants. The judges enjoyed the afternoon immensely, and have asked that the stories be continued so that they can find out what happens!

Thursday was a HUGE day- it started with the Illustration Competition in Period 2, where students were given a prompt from “What we All Saw” (a previous Book of the Year) and asked to illustrate what they thought the characters had seen. Some very spooky images came from this!

Following that, in Period 3, was Mrs Boxall’s Folded Book Art class, where a class set of discarded books were turned into works of art. Attendees were very pleased with their new art works; this is becoming a very popular Book Week offering.

Period 4, after the excitement of the Parade at lunchtime, was a Book Group led and facilitated by Shannon McShortall, discussing the very creepy book by Gary Crew: The Viewer. A vigorous discussion was had by all.

The absolute highlight of the day, and indeed the week, was the Grand Parade! Huge efforts had been made by staff and students to come in costume; group costumes were very much in evidence, and everyone was delighted! It was a very tough call, but in the end the judges decided on the following prize winners:

Cutest: All the visitors from Early Learning Centre Ngawak tied for this, as the judges couldn’t bear to decide between them.

Year 7- Amelia Jeffrey-Owen, who dressed as the Goddess Hera from the Percy Jackson book series

Year 8- Lachie Bell, who dressed as the Wimpy Kid from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series

Year 9- a tie between Allycia Taranto, who cleverly dressed in fatigues and a calendar to portray the book Tomorrow, When the War Began, and Samia El Barche, who had designed and sewn her own 1870s era gown to portray Jane, from the Tarzan book series

Year 10- Ash Howard- the first time a prize has been awarded to somebody portraying a character from a not-yet-published book!

Year 11- Cypress Daly, who painted her costume and appeared in splendour as the Goddess Aphrodite from the Goddess Girls book series

Year 12-Best Group went to Charlee Brughera (Dorothy), Scott Lamrock (Tin Man), James Campbell (Scarecrow), and River Seaward (Cowardly Lion) who came skipping straight out of The Wizard of Oz.Best Individual Costume went to Poppy Cowley, who came as The Fly, from the book The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.

Staff-

A very strong contest this year! Well done, everyone!

Best Group, and this was a very difficult decision, went to the Senior Office, who dressed up as the entire Greek Pantheon from the Percy Jackson series.Runner up went to the principal team, who collectively dressed as the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Best Individual went to Donna Fogarty, who dressed as the late Ruth Gader Binsburg, while carrying the Mighty Girls biography of her.

Best Surprise went to Laura and Lewis White’s baby Estella, who was dressed as Wally (along with the rest of the English office)!

Friday saw the conclusion of the celebrations with the all-levels trivia contest, hosted by the inimitable Michael Walklate in Andrew Hemsley’s absence.

All through the week, students contributed to the Reviews of Note display, put their guesses in for the number of Words in the Jar (well done to Charlee Brughera for the closest guess of 378, the actual total was 385) and wandered around the school looking for the Symphony characters hidden in plain sight.

The biggest event of the week was the inaugural McClelland Book Fair! We partnered with Larrikin House, a small but mighty Australian publishing house, and we raised a total of $1610, giving us a commission of $322 to spend on new books for the library! Larrikin were very impressed with us; secondary school Fairs do not traditionally do very well. Given how delighted everybody seemed to be with the books, and the pens, and the butter squishies, we think we will make it an annual event!

Weeks like this involve huge effort from many people, and very grateful thanks go to staff members Suzie Dubocanin, Emma Sproule, Karina Fisk, Sana Shafi, Shannon McShortall, Benedicte Imbert, Simon Rowley, Michael Walklate, Amanda Pate, Scott Jones, Nina Toal, and Jacqui Witt and students Daniel Brenchley, Lia Velissaris, Makayla and Charlotte Doyle, Harriet Langford, Lily Shackles, Sol Young, Shalom Mooney, Liam Swan, Claire Tampus, & Wilbur Bishop.

-Kirsten Boxall, Librarian

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