The power of words can never be underestimated.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And once again, a Gib Gate student has shown they have a very powerful way with them.
Year 5 student Isabella Atra won the NESA (NSW Education Standards Authority) WriteOn Gold Award.
Her submission entitled, Waiting was selected from entries from all school sectors across the state. I
sabella’s piece was written in response to an old photograph depicting a group of boys climbing through a gap in a wooden fence.
Gib Gate Teacher Librarian, Mrs Lee Ann Marsh who accepted the award on behalf of Isabella from David de Carvalho, NESA CEO, at the WriteOn award ceremony at the State Library of NSW, said Isabella had been a long-time member of the Gib Gate Scriptore’s writing group.
The Scriptore’s is a group of gifted students who enjoy spending time together developing their passion for writing and honing their craft.
The Gib Gate Scriptore’s group gives students the opportunity to work alongside like-minded students, sharing their love of literature and developing their writing ability, inspired by specialist workshops with notable authors and illustrators such as Juliette MacIver and Sarah Davis, Rachel Spratt, Anna Feinberg (Tashi Series), Ursula Dubosarsky, Frances Watts, Lisa Shanahan and Morris Glietzmann.
Isabella’s achievement builds on a tradition of excellence in writing by Gib Gate students, with Alexandra Inglis (Year 6) winning three Gold NESA WriteOn Awards (2014, 2016 and 2017)- the first student to achieve this in the history of the competition.
Waiting
By Isabella Atra
Chirp, chirp. We awoke to the sound of beautiful birds singing as the sunlight sliced through the window. I could feel an unfamiliar smile creep over my face. “It’s a sign!”, I thought as I lay in bed watching the happiness of the sun’s bright rays dance around the dark, gloomy walls of the orphanage. Today’s the day we escape this horrid place!“Henry?” whimpered Toby. I looked over at my brother, his little face confused by my optimism. Like everything else in our lives, the sun had left us months ago. But today, it was as if the sunlight reached into our windows and wrapped us in her bright, warm arms, gently stroking our faces. Yes, today was different.
We set out on our usual escape route. During morning wash up we would slip out through the toilet window and run!!! Run through the fields, all the way to town. Blending in with the other people on the street, trying not to be recognised, we stuck to the back lanes. We were getting good at this. As we reached our destination, the lane seemed different, like it seemed to change every time we were here, but there it was, the broken back fence! Home!
As we slid in between the broken palings, we entered our backyard, our hearts filling with hope, excitement. As my eyes wandered over to our house, past our big oak tree where we had climbed many times . . . I saw her. My heart thumped and with a big lump in my throat, I held back tears. There in the window was my mother, standing by the kitchen sink, staring out the window towards the back lane. A very familiar sight. Too familiar.
“Henry, she’s home! Can she see us this time?” Toby whispered with a familiar hopeful excitement. I could see that she had the same empty look in her eyes, staring right through us like sheets of glass . . . like we didn’t exist….like she had done many times before. I fell to the ground, knees trembling, belly aching. Nothing had changed. She couldn’t see us because she stood still in her pain and overwhelming shock at losing dad in Gallipoli. Our lives changed when dad never returned. Mum was never the same as she stood staring at the back lane, waiting for dad to come home. Waiting. Just like we were waiting for her memory to return and her love to return to us. Waiting for her arms to wrap around us and stroke our faces like the warmth of the sunlight. But, today wasn’t different at all. “Give her time, she will remember you again,” they told us. For now, we will just sit and wait. Wait for the orphanage to come and get us as they had done many times before, and wait for mum to remember us. As I put my arm around Toby, his little face confused and scared, I whispered “Next time will be different.”