Ava Kings Young Voices Awards

The 2025 Young Voices Awards is presented by the Australian Catholics magazine in partnership with Australian Catholic University (ACU).

Congratulations to Ava King in Year 5M for being awarded Highly Commended in the Junior article category for her entry titled 'The New Girl'.

St John the Apostle were thanked for participating in this year’s Young Voices Awards. The creativity and thoughtfulness demonstrated by the students at our school was considered outstanding work and much appreciated by the judging panel.

The Australian Catholics magazine will be publishing the list of this year’s winners and highly commended entries, including select submissions, in the upcoming digital Spring edition of Australian Catholics. 

Below is Ava’s highly commended entry, “The New Girl”. That Ava wrote as part of a Media Arts Assignment in Performing Arts.

‘The New Girl

Can you imagine having to move schools 3 times? That's what happened to me. My name is Ava, I am 10 yrs old and I am in grade 5. The school I go to is St John the Apostle Primary School in Florey.

We move every few years because of my dad’s job. Every time I go to a new school I always go through a lot of emotions because I am full of anxiety. I always start to think ‘Will they like me? Will they not like me? Will I have friends? Will I be lonely?’ These are the things that I go through in my head when I start a new school.

Over the years I learnt that there is a difference between being a new kid in school and a normal student at school. A casual student knows their schedule for school. However, a day at school is different for new kids. It is different because you don’t know what you are going to do for the day. For me it’s stressful when I’m not sure what I’m doing.

With all the emotion of starting a new school, I learnt how important it is to treat others and how I want them to treat me, not just on my first day, but every day because kindness matters.

For me a kind person is someone who is empathetic, helpful, compassionate and friendly. This is who I am and how I want others to treat me. Spreading kindness is one of my passions I wish everyone in the world had. What would the world be like without kindness? 

I would love to be an advocate for new kids. An advocate is a role model who is aware of bullying and looks out for others. Just like every time when I'm new I always have someone who would show me around and be like a best friend. They’re kind, empathetic and they are trustworthy. I have the experience of being the new kid and that is harder than a normal school day!

Over the years of changing schools, I've noticed bullying a lot. I’ve even had it done to me, and I know this happens to everyone. I just wish the world was nicer to each other.

-By Ava King