Footy Writing Competition winners announced

Melville Primary School Student Pia Ainsworth has been named the Year 3 winner for the West Australian Football Commission (WAFC) Footy Writing Competition.

Pia was awarded a prize pack from Burley Sekem and her school received a collection of books worth over $250 donated by Penguin Random House for her outstanding narrative called ‘A Footy Tail’.

Oliver Kreiger from Hale School won the Year 5 category prize for his narrative called ‘The Worst Kick’.

The inaugural writing competition was delivered by the WAFC during the first term of school, as an ideal preparation tool for NAPLAN testing.

Students were set the task of writing a narrative using an opening paragraph that included a football stimulus.

Hundreds of entries were received and a shortlist of narratives were presented to the judging panel, which included East Fremantle footballer and Aquinas College teacher Timothy Bristow.

Bristow commended the quality of the narratives he judged.

“The structure and depth of vocabulary were the outstanding strengths of the entries,” Bristow said.

Bristow, who has recently celebrated the launch of his second children’s novel, will visit the two schools and host a writing workshop.

WAFC Schools Program Manager David Lindsay said the competition was a great success.

“It was fantastic to see the interest in the competition this year and it appears that there might be scope to include students from other year levels in the future.” Lindsay said.