What a fantastic morning we had on Wednesday 10 August.

Woodend hosted the 13th Annual Hiragana Reading Competition and we were joined by students from 6 other local primary schools. This is an annual event for our Year 7 students. Competition is so fierce that we have to have our own run offs before the big day as so many students want to participate in the event.

We had 8 teams compete this year. Students, in teams of 4, play off against other teams for 4 rounds. This is done for Group A and Group B so at the end of the 4 rounds we take the top 4 teams from both groups and then the finals are played out.

We had 6 teams in the finals this year. It was an extremely close competition this year with our other 2 teams only missing out by 1 point each in being in the final.

The finals are very intense and you can feel the nerves and tension in the gym as the rounds are played out!

We had a very successful year taking out 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th places.

1st – The Riceballs  Toby S, Kyte, Hans and Noah

2nd – Kawaii Cookies  Chloe L, Danica, Eleanor and Talitha

3rd – The Sushi Balls  Lilly W, Olivia, Chloe L-B and Sarah

Congratulations to all students who got up and had a go on Wednesday. Your hard work was evident throughout the event.

I would also like to thank those students who helped co-host the morning and help out with handing out popsticks each round. Arigato~ to Gaurav, Josh B, Maddiey and Anastasia our co-hosts and Maddie, Libby, Lucy and Jayden our popstick helpers.

Thank you Vinall Sensai for this report and also for the great organisation for the event and the amazing preparation of our students!

All our competitors…minus 3!

Our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place getters

Final rounds