Write a Book in a Day Competition 2021

On September the 16th, a day in which most students were slowing down for the holidays, six teams of St Andrews students from Year 7 to Year 10 were gathering online for the Kid’s Cancer Project Write a Book in a Day competition. 

The goal of the day is for teams of 5-10 students to plan, write and illustrate an entire book in 12 hours. While there is a competitive element with schools around the country competing against each other for a number of prizes, the primary focus of the day is to raise funds for the charity and to bring both awareness of the organisation and joy to the kids in hospitals around the country with our books. Each book is published by the organisation and distributed around the country’s various children’s cancer centres. Today was for the kids.

Our day began at 0700, bright and early for most. While we had always hoped to be face-to-face for the day, lockdown meant that we had to Zoom and be distant from each other. Teams got to work quickly, especially those who had experience from last year, and drafts were finished quite early in most cases. The freedom of being at home brought some advantages as students could eat and drink as much as they wanted on the day and weren’t tied to fixed break times. Although it was sad not to see the organised chaos in person, four teachers provided support along the way and we did regular check-ins with each group. When things got tough, we reminded ourselves – this is for the kids.

By the half-way point of the day some groups were finished drafts and had begun to edit. Those final six hours can be quite stressful and many students took the opportunity to have some fun along the way. It is always uplifting to see that even in stressful situations, students can find something to smile and joke about. Even when one group had their main computer crash, they kept going and found a way forward. It was for the kids. 

The final hour was the tense rush of edits and questions where students wonder if it all makes sense after all. The conversations were motivated to create the best stories possible and the illustrators, who outdo themselves every year, did so again. They have the tough job of bringing the words to life with pictures and they produce such quality that this final hour is spent colouring, downloading, uploading and blending with the equally fabulous words. It’s all for the kids. 

When the stories were done they were uploaded to the Kid’s Cancer Council website and everyone took a breath. It was a long day and a tough way to finish the term, but everyone worked superbly and produced six top-quality stories for the kids to read.  We also managed to raise $2020  towards finding a cure for  childhood cancers. Thank you to the students and parents who supported this important initiative.

The following students and staff took part in the day:

Staff:

Mr Dewar.

Mrs Deschamps.

Mrs Flaihan.

Ms Hicks.

Mrs Kelly.

We hope you will join us in 2022!

Mr Dewar
Literacy and Special Projects Co-Ordinator.