Autobiographies: Grade 6

How well do you know our youngest students in Grade 6? Who would have thought they would already have such colourful tales to tell?

After reading “Boy” by Roald Dahl in English, they wrote their own autobiographies.

Can you guess which extract belongs to which student?

Student A

Growing up in India, my dad worked there and he was often at work from early in the morning to late at night. My mother was also very busy during the day. She went to the office and, when I was a baby, my sister was still a toddler. My parents had to find a nanny to take care of us. And I’m glad they did. Their names were Kantu and Mona. They soon became equivalent to our big sisters or even our two mothers. They were Indian and every single day, they would cook the most brilliant Indian food ever. They would feed us many spicy dishes and so my sister and I became very comfortable with spicy foods. Not only did they cook for us, but they played with us. They even dressed up in our little princess costumes or they would pretend to be our Prince Charming while we were pretending to play.

I looked in the mirror, lifted the scissors up to my head, took the largest chunk of hair I could gather into my hands, took the paper cutting scissors and sniped of A LOT of hair in just a couple of seconds. I was so satisfied by this, I kept on cutting. I was so swooped up in this void of snipping my hair that I hadn’t realised how much of my hair was in the sink. I was so happy to look at my hair in the mirror and see a change. It felt nice to have something different.

Student B

Mr. Corrigan was the coolest teacher ever, he was an amazing mathematician, tech god, 80‘s band influencer, rugby player, eco activist and straight up LEGEND. He was tough on you some times, but it was for a good reason. I thank him for all the support and the discipline. Some children in the younger years were terrified of him but once you got to about year 5, he really wasn‘t that bad . During all my time there he was sort of a good cop and bad cop . He never actually was one, but I always wondered if he had another secret life outside of school .

Mr Buckley AKA Mancunian Michael McIntyre. Also the guy who taught me the ways of rock and roll AKA the guy who gave me my first E guitar. He was amazing. He took us on a tour of Manchester, his home town, the coolest roller coaster park in the country and the world famous curry mile. Literally a mile long street of curry houses, shish kebabs and there were protests for civil rights in their homeland.

Student C

My grandpa used to be a football player for the best club in Poland. His position was a goalkeeper. He always used to tell me how he had a bad match one day and a good match the other. One day he got kicked in the nuts and one of his nuts had to get amputated. Then cause of that he got cancer, but now he’s doing fine. He sold a company for a lot of money. He has a huge grass field with 5 houses, 2 dogs, a game room and a boat and also a play room. We often visit him and every year I go to Norway with him and a couple of his friends. We all go there to fish. We always go to a small island where we have a house. The closest store and city or village is a whole other island. The only thing is that for a week we only eat seafood and pasta for lunch and dinner. The biggest fish I caught in Norway was 15kg and 120cm. It almost pulled the rod out of my hand once. Since my grandpa is older he uses an electric rod that can roll itself up without the person doing any effort.

Student D

I remember that I was very sick. I told my dad and he opened a cupboard with thousands of medicines that I hadn’t seen before. He found a traditional Chinese medicine. When I finished the medicine my dad would always give me crystal sugar because it was too bitter. When I finished the medicine my face turned straight green. It tasted like rotten eggs - it was disgusting, horrible, sickening. I will never drink that again.

When I was 7 or 6, back then, there were two mean girls. First one asked if she could look at my backpack because it was beautiful, then they decided to play piggy in the middle and they were just throwing it around. One looked like a Giant. She never sneezed, her nose was blocked and one time I remember she sneezed and it was right in front of me so then I had burgers all over myself. The other girl looked like a skinny pig. She was skinny as a page of a book. Her hair was like a rubbish bin. It was so messy that you can even find an apple core in it. She was not nice at all; she was like a wicked witch. She had a pointy nose just like a witch and their nicknames were the Patricia sisters: one was called Drizella Patricia and the other was called Anastasia Patricia. They were step sisters so they always fought like the stepsisters in Cinderella.

Student E

My grandpa, Nigel Antony Lyle grew up in a big house with his sister, brother and and his parents, Bob and Barbra. Bob was a doctor so on the first floor of ‘Tachely House’ there was the waiting room, always full of Beanos that my grandpa and his siblings would secretly read. He grew up loving mountains and so as soon as he was old enough, he would go on long trips to the alps. He loved hiking, climbing and walking up steep slopes.

Then after many years, when he was 19, he was climbing up a mountain with his friend when a rock fell. It knocked him over and squished his leg. That night a storm came in. His friend called for help but no one came. It was too steep for a helicopter to land and so word reached the town of Chamonix. It was said to be un-flyable. You needed someone brave, smart and a good pilot. And two people by the name of Romet and Mezureux, decided to fly the impossible. Three days went by with my Grandpa and his friend stuck on the ledge of a misty mountain. Then at dawn, when the air stood still, they saw the helicopter. It was too steep a face for the helicopter to come down so they tried something else. They swung the strop and grandpa attached it to himself and they hoisted him up. The first ever alpine helicopter winch rescue. They soared down in the helicopter and the rescue had been done, the undoable had been done. Some months later, his leg had been amputated and in its place was a plastic replica. Today he still swears he can wiggle his toes.

Reflections on International Women’s Day 2023

“8th March is a really important day in Bulgaria and we are celebrating it as a big day. I sent flowers today to my mom, grandma and great-grandma from here and I hope they like my surprise as much as I'm excited about them receiving the flowers. I think this day should be as important as national days in all of the countries.”

Maria Rogacheva, Grade 10

“In Mexico we celebrate women's day by mostly posting in our social media and then people go to the streets, vandalise buildings, train stations and go to protest to the government buildings or important Mexican places.

What I think we could also do to celebrate women's day would be, have a day off school so that people could go and protest or spend time with their moms.”

Jesse Parada, Grade 10

“This is a very important day in Mexico. There are very different ways of "celebrating" this day, but the thing in Mexico is that we don't really celebrate.

Most women, especially feminists, take advantage of this day to protest for women's rights for those who don't have a voice. (That's not the major topic but since a lot of women disappear each year, they "speak for the ones that don't have a voice") Other things that women do is something known as "disappearing for one day" to show the importance of women and the value they have. This is done by staying in your house, not going to school/work, going off of social media, etc. I sometimes don't go to school but if I do I wear something purple.

Maria Retana Harb, Grade 10

“Every March 8, in Mexico we remember the battle of women for equality, respect, constant fighting for our rights, and protests in honour of all of the dead women and girls that have only been killed because of their gender or been sexually abused. We do not celebrate, we keep fighting for the rights we deserve.”

Samantha Letjik Trejo, Grade 10

“We think that international women's day should be celebrated with these events :

- Pizza party !

- Dress up ( goofy outfits )

- Make decorations (e.g. have loads of “be happy” flags everywhere)

- presentation to explain about women's day

Thank you

From the whole grade 8 English class.”

Thoughts from Grade 10 in response to the article “Enough Is Enough: The Fight Against Everyday Sexism” by Laura Bates https:// www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/29/everyday-sexism-womenencounter-laura-bates

“Throughout most of history, women generally had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women's most significant professions. In the 20th century, however, women in most nations won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Nowadays sexism hasn't changed drastically but for sure women are more respected and have more legal rights than before. Feminists these days are a lot more than before as well.”

Maria Rogacheva, Grade 10

“After reading the article, I felt like discovering a new perspective on sexism. I didn't realize that there is so much "daily sexism" going on around us. I realize that sexism nowadays could be something as simple as a few words, and it could really make the opposite gender feel offended.

I really like the idea of how the author started a website and a twitter account for people to post their "everyday sexism" stories, it is a good way since it is anonymous online and people can express themselves and their feelings and share them with each other.

In 2023, I think the situation has got worse than before as the growing popularity of social media, people began to share their photos and everyday life on the internet more than ever, and consequently, comments are becoming anonymous. This fact made people start pushing the limit of speech and the content of the speeches, and some of them could be really offensive and hurt others, and due to the pressure of the comments, a lot of social media influencers would eventually end up getting depression and might have actions of self-harm.

Overall I think this article has changed my perspective towards sexism, it made me really reflect that sometimes the things we say could eventually be sexist towards the opposite gender and can be harmful to people.”

Alex Ma, Grade 10

The author talks about undergoing objectification and being catcalled / harassed on the street. She complains that things like this have been so woven into her life that she has learned to not see it as a big thing, she views this as a regular thing in a ‘woman's life’; and it’s truly sad. The author complains that experiences like the ones mentioned in the article are too small to go to the police about, yet far too unacceptable for people to start letting go unnoticed. She describes catcalling as something that’s just tedious and persistent. She has learned to live with it. As a man, it disgusts me to hear of the statistics of rape and sexual harrassment. It’s not only that I myself am ashamed of my gender and the fear it may bring to certain women with past trauma, it’s being aware that a huge amount of men are like this. It just doesn’t make sense to me how men, brothers and sons can treat women in such a fashion.

Assem Karameh, Grade 10