Pointers Pupil wins National Essay Award

Enormous congratulations to Savannah (Y5) who won 1st Place in the ISA National Essay Competition!! 🏆

The judges said:

What a beautifully written essay! Savannah’s readers are dramatically captured in the initial opening lines and constantly held in suspense until the very last page. The narrator’s viewpoint is immediately established: “Phew! What is that smell?” We are transported into the writer’s world and can hear the narrator’s voice: “I had always wanted to explore the inner workings of the zoo, but not like this!” Readers are eager to learn more! The story is developed through a variety of sentence constructions like “Fuelled with fear, I was desperately running for my life”. A range of well-chosen stylistic features is used effectively to create an atmosphere with the “menacing hungry hyenas” or produce tension: “Silently screaming, my instincts reminded me about these notorious predators.”

As dramatic tension mounts, Savannah displays great craft in intensifying the narrator’s panic “Keep calm! Keep calm!...(inside, however, I was bursting with terror)”. Such examples of embedded clauses show a notable sophistication in language for such a young writer. As the narrative unravels in seamless paragraphs, the atmosphere is enhanced by sensory imagery: “Mist surrounded me; the zoo keeper’s keys clicked” and “I silently scrambled down the trunk and made my escape.” Savannah’s style is economical but captivates her readers! Congratulations for composing such a masterful essay!