English News – Poetry Awards and English Prizes

Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards

Eleanor Lawrie (Year 9) Shortlisted and Zoe Coudounaris (Year 5) Highly Commended

It was so pleasing to see a number of SCEGGS students from the Primary and Secondary School submit entries to the prestigious Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards. The theme “In my Opinion” elicited a range of provocative and thoughtful responses and encouraged students to draw both from their own experiences and the political landscape surrounding them. All students who participated are congratulated and will receive certificates acknowledging their efforts in class.

We would like to congratulate in particular Eleanor Lawrie who was Shortlisted for her poem “Rabbit” and Zoe Coudounaris who was Highly Commended for her poem “Alone this Girl sits.”  The judges commented on the fact that “poetry has always been the most emotive of the written arts, yet you will find poems in this collection where the imagery and control of language serve to heighten the emotions rather than over-dramatise them, the mark of successful poetry.”

More information about the award winners for the Dorothea Mackellar Competition can be found here.

We encourage all keen writers to enter to internal SCEGGS Betty Behan and Gwen Cockell Prizes; so many opportunities await!

Betty Behan and Gwen Cockell English Prizes

Invitation to enter Speech night prizes

Each year SCEGGS invites students in Years 7 – 10 to submit their creative fiction and poetry writing into the Betty Behan Memorial Prize for Short Story and Gwen Cockell Prize for Creative Writing (awarded for Poetry). Named in honour of an old girl and former English teacher, these prizes are awarded at Speech Night and are a wonderful way of celebrating the writing of our students. Winning entries and extracts of commended pieces of work are also published each year in the Lux magazine.

Students are invited to submit work that they have completed in class, or which they have worked on independently over the year. Each year we are thrilled to have so many entries from the talented writers at SCEGGS. The closing date for entries is Term 4 Week 2 (Friday 21st October). Students can follow this link to read the instructions, upload their work and read winning entries from previous years.

Jenny Bean
Head of English