Gary Crew and Conondale Grade 4 teacher, Phil Gaffney with his winning team.
THE SEVENTH annual Gary Crew Readers Trophy was even bigger and better this year. The reading competition for Year 4 classes at Maleny State School was expanded to include student teams from Montville and Conondale Schools.
More than 100 students, teachers and parents gathered in the Maleny Community Centre to see three teams answer questions on four books – From Little Things Big Things Grow by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody, Sally Murphy’s Toppling, Moya Simons, High Crime in Milk Bay and The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan.
Founder of the Readers Perpetual Trophy, author Gary Crew talks to students from the three competing schools before the contest gets under way.
The morning’s fun was under the control of actor and playwright, Simon Denver. The three judges were Peta Miller from Rosetta Books, June Hammond from Friends of the Library and Maleny Library Coordinator, Patricia Stahl. Maleny Library organised the event with considerable community input on the day.
On stage Simon Denver posed questions to the three teams who had a minute to write down their answers. The judges awarded points on how well the students had read the four books and were precise in their answers.
Facilitator Simon Denver confers with judges. The Conondale team is in the background.
The winning school was Conondale who received a resounding applause from the audience. The winning team consisted of Tarci Carey, Matthew Fisher, Sophie Grigor, Chloe Lanham, Aya Rae-Anthonysz and Jack Shalley.
Patricia Stahl said she was delighted that the Readers Trophy was into its seventh year and had now embraced Montville and Conondale schools. It is hoped that Mapleton will join the competition in 2011.
“We are delighted that the students are involved in this competition”, said Patricia. “As librarians and friends of the library we want children to read for life and the Readers Trophy is one way of helping fulfil that ambition.”
Author Gary Crew told all the students that he had started the Readers Trophy because as a child he had loved reading and he hoped this competition stimulated them to keep reading books.
Montville team confer over one of the questions.
“Writing, reading and the arts competitions can be just as important in schools as sports competitions” said Gary, “as they encourage the budding writer or artist to seek out a future career in the industry.”
Team members received certificates and medals, with the winning school to be inscribed on the perpetual trophy.
The Gary Crew Readers Trophy was supported this year by Rosetta Books and Maleny Additions, Friends of the Library who provided book vouchers and prepared refreshments, Maleny IGA and the Maple Street Cooperative who donated food, Peter Hudson who visited schools to discuss his work, and the Hinterland Times and Rosetta Books which donated sets of books to each of the schools.
Leave a Reply