One of Australia International School Malaysia (AISM)’s students, Megan Yap from Year 5, achieved the Gold Award in the 2015 Write-On writing competition, an annual writing competition for New South Wales (NSW) students in Years 1 to 6. The competition is run by the Board of Studies Teaching Educational Standards (BOSTES), Australia, and is open to all primary students across the state and internationally.
“I was so happy when I heard the news! I recently completed an online writing course, it’s good to know that all my hard work has paid off,“ said Megan, who is excited to be invited to the New South Wales (NSW) State Library to attend a special presentation ceremony and morning tea, which includes an author visit and a tour of the NSW State Library. BOSTES also provides winners with the opportunity to have their piece published in a Best of WriteOn anthology.
The competition used a photograph as a stimulus, and students were asked to compose an imaginative piece of writing. This year, the students were provided with a picture of an old flying blimp as inspiration for their creative piece. Entries were judged based on the student’s ability to demonstrate exceptional quality of writing by engaging the audience in a way that is creative, interpretive, critical and powerful yet maintaining a consistent structure appropriate for the type of text selected. Entries also needed to comprise of proper use of a variety of language, vocabulary and punctuation forms throughout the piece while showing evidence of a process of planning, investigating, adapting, editing and revising. Megan managed to capture all of these elements in her piece which evidently impressed the judges and earned her the Gold Award.
The Australian education offers various opportunities for students to excel not just within their existing learning environment, but as far as their passion can take them. AISM provides that platform in Malaysia for young learners to develop the skills necessary to be competitive on a global scale.
