Two teams of four students from each of our 7-9 enrichment classes were chosen to complete in a Maths Games Day against other schools from across Victoria. As we were in remote learning during this time, each team worked to deligate and break down the activities during their time allocated. It was a whirlwind of a day, with students not only practicing their mathematical problem solving skills, but also their leadership and team-building skills.

Results:

Year 7 Team A: 32nd place - 126 points

Year 7 Team B: 26th place - 145 points

Year 8 Team A: 27th place - 175 points

Year 8 Team B: 36th place - 144 points

Year 9 Team A: 17th place - 106 points

Year 9 Team B: 16th place - 108 points

Thank you to Ms Garg, Mr Meadows, and Mr Le for making the three games days successful this year! 

A select number of interested writers from year 9 and 10 were given the opportunity to attend a Writing Workshop hosted by Gurmeet Kaur from the Immigration Museum with guest speakers Anthea Yang and Munira Tabassum Ahmed. Students were introduced to the writing process through experiences, forms of poetry, key ideas when writing, and practiced responding to prompts.

“The writer's stories were original, raw and brought a new point of view to the words of identity, inspiring everyone to be an author, instead of limiting the space of authors to those who we know but many more.”

• Frankee-Lee George

“My previous English teachers always said that writing is about depth and meaning that connects to the world. I've always believed that such depth and literature can be found in the works of famous dead authors like Shakespeare. Attending this webinar personally illuminated how writing can be used as an outlet of expression. It truly does. As an activity, we were told to write without stopping. By simply writing for 10 minutes with a ghost line, I felt as if I was channelling a creative and hidden alter ego within myself. And for that, I am grateful to the Immigration Museum, Culture Makers Lab, and guest speakers Anthea Yang and Munira Tabassum Ahmed for their insights and experiences.” 

• Swetha Nandakumar

For anyone interested in responding to one of the writing prompts, see below:

Key Ideas 

Ghost line – a line of writing taken from someone else that inspires your writing but is not included in the final version of your work 

Free writing – writing all your thoughts without stopping for a set period of time and without worrying about spelling, punctuation or grammar 

Writing Prompt (10min)

"If I don’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive."  - Audre Lorde 

1. List words that you associate with define, crunched, eaten alive, myself for myself 

2. Free-write starting with the ghost line 'If I don't define myself for myself...' 

Challenge – Incorporate the bold words as you write 

Today’s society has many issues, including but not limited to global warming, gender inequality, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.  NGV’s Creative Writing Challenge with Kalinda Ashton: Dystopian Worlds inspired both myself and others to extend our thinking on these issues in a creative manner, using artwork from the NGV collection as inspiration. Key ideas that I’ve taken away from the challenge include how to construct a premise for a short story, crafting an opening line, and imagining a setting. The workshop left me with ways to extend my writing in the future, and was incredibly engaging.

• Mikayla Borchard

More details about the creative writing challenge here: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/program/writing-kalinda-ashton/

Creativity can sprout anywhere, and the ARC Creative Writing Challenge really helped me understand that. The workshop, which was held on the 21st of September, focused on finding inspiration for our stories in some simple yet beautiful pieces of art. The workshop helped me understand how to cultivate ideas and transform them into detailed stories.The workshop also highlighted the importance of well developed characters and helped us shape our protagonist through a series of questions. These questions focused on what our character wants, branching out to their traits. The questions also helped us to make the obstacles and stakes of our story clear. This led me to delving deeper into the much needed planning and thought process for a good story, equipping me with helpful tips and tricks to transform ideas into brilliant stories. 

• Siya Singh

More details about the creative writing challenge here: https://arc.educationapps.vic.gov.au/eventhub/providers/NGV/events/779/details