What Matters? 

The grade 5/6 students worked hard and completed their entries for this years Gough Whitlams 'What Matters' writing competition. Students were required to choose a topic that they believed mattered to them and write 600 words or less in a style of their choice. This is an Australia wide competition and due to it being competitive, students had minimal editing support from teachers.

Topics were varied and included 'Family,' 'Friends,' 'My Future,' 'Health,' 'Animals,'      'Sports,' and 'Unfair conditions in the African Cocoa trade.'

I hope that you will all get to read your childs entry this year because they were all amazing. Due to the length, I am unable to share them all in the newsletter, I have selected just one of the amazing pieces of writing to share now. Enjoy reading. 

My Different Worlds  

By Fred Wood

When I open the first page of a new book, I feel like I’ve entered another world.  Books make my imagination open up to other worlds, because I feel like I'm in the first person view of the scene in the words.  

Snap! I’m entering the cave of monsters, with an iron sword, magical armour, and my fearless stallion. The harpies and possessed humans are emerging from the darkness to guard the treasure, and hoping to feast on my fresh flesh. The possessed people are muttering incredibly old ancient languages that I don’t understand but I think it’s something to do with killing me. I saw the treasure and I was running towards it when.... 

Snap! I'm eating at a magnificent feast in a giant castle in 1991 with King Charles the 3rd and his wife, and also a few other people. His butlers were asking everybody if we want any more drinks or snacks with exceptionally good manners, so no one started complaining that they were being discourteous and told the king to chop their heads off. 

Snap! It’s World-War-2 and I'm down in the trenches reloading my magazine and getting more grenades to throw at the Nazis. Oh no! A bit of shrapnel from a grenade got stuck into my leg and blood is oozing out quickly. In a few minutes I might have serious blood loss and it might cause death. Everything was so loud, cannons were deafening me and firing of machine guns and so many other guns weren't helping either. 

Snap! I'm in a getaway vehicle with other criminals wearing the same sort of black ski masks, and orange jumpsuits. We are each holding a big bag of cash with dollar signs on them, and I can hear police sirens behind us. I was thinking we weren’t going to make it, when at that moment we turned down an alley way and we were about to hit a wall when the driver pulled a leaver. We somehow teleported to a place I'd never seen before but I guess everyone else had because I was new to this gangster group. 

Snap! I'm diving deep into the depths of the ocean seeing breath takingly amazing sea creatures that I’ve never seen or heard of in my life. There are so many incredible colourful fish swimming past me, Manter Rays gliding so graciously through the water and there were also octopus, and eels, and so many more things I couldn’t name. But my amazement didn’t last long because all the sea creatures swam away so quickly. Then I saw why, a great white shark was swimming towards me......  

I've reached the last page of my book. 

Books are one of the many things that matter to me, they make me feel happy and safe, I don’t know why they do that. I think books are one of the things that makes this world better. Think of one of the times you’ve read books when your sad or angry or feeling negative and it makes you feel better. If books weren’t there, the world might be a whole lot more annoyed, and you might not have the friends you have now.