Jessica Vuong was really happy, but also surprised, when she was announced the winner of the City of Boroondara’s Young Writers Prose award for her piece, Broken Loyalties.
The year five student at St Anne’s Primary School, Kew East, won first place in the junior category out of 700 entries. One of the judges, Australian literary editor and children’s writer, Davina Bell, said:
“Broken Loyalties is an ambitious tale of loyalty and survival, told with graceful confidence. The story of siblings grappling with questions of morality in the face of war is deftly drawn, the prose punchy and compelling. The writer does an extraordinary amount of characterisation and world-building in a short space and should be commended on the high standard of all aspects of their craft. The ambiguity of the ending is very nicely handled.
One person who was not surprised by Jessica’s win was her teacher, Ryan Kittelty, who says, “she’s amazing in everything that she tries”.
In term two, the school arranged for a writing workshop with Australian young adult and children’s fiction author, Leanne Hall. A lot of the students were inspired by this workshop to enter the Boroondara Literary Awards, working on their writing at home and also being supported at school.
At St Anne’s School, the teachers use a number of different programs, such as the ‘seven steps to writing’, which breaks the process down into seven main steps. Through programs and opportunities introduced at the school, students like Jessica have been improving and honing their skills, while also becoming engaged in the craft of writing.
“Jessica enjoys writing because ‘you can really do anything with it, you can create anything you would like and you can just imagine,” says Kittely, adding that she was pleased Jessica has been recognised in this field:
“It’s really nice that we’re seeing these students recognised for their amazing abilities and their passions as well. We’re always celebrating the sporting achievements, but now also the academic achievements and artistic achievements … it’s really wonderful. We really look at the whole child … that whole-rounded aspect of every student in the school, which is really what we try and do here at St Anne’s.”
